President of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem, asked for measures to “accelerate recovery” in the eurozone, stressing that development is still too weak to create jobs and resolve the debt problem.

“We need more robust growth and we need to take some measures to stimulate growth”, he said towards reporters during the forum on monetary policy held by the ECB near Lisbon.

“Confidence has returned to the eurozone and development has come back for almost all countries. Yet we need stronger growth in order for job positions to be created en masse”, stressed Dijsselbloem.

“We are still faced with a substantial debt of households and governments. This is another reason why we need development measures”, he added.

When asked on a possible ECB action in order to stimulate growth, he merely stated that he believes in “the ECB’s independence”.

On Portugal, he stated that “the country is going better than anticipated, growth returns, unemployment declines, but growth should be stronger”.