LISBON, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa on Friday said 2020 to 2030 would be "a decade of convergence with the European Union (EU)."

Costa's comments came in an address to the Regional Council Commission for the Coordination and Development of the Alentejo Region (CCDRA), Portuguese Lusa News Agency reported.

With the Portugal 2020 national strategy program approaching its end, the government has launched a consultancy process to discuss the Portugal 2030 program.

Costa said Portugal had achieved a strong convergence with the EU between 1986, the year Portugal joined the EU, and 2000. But the period since then had been one of "prolonged stagnation and even divergence."

He claimed his Socialist Party (PS) government, which entered office in November 2015, had turned things around and laid the platform for a new dynamic path.

According to Costa, Portugal's priorities for the next decade include: energy transition in the face of climate change; the development of a sea-based economic sector; securing Portugal's position in international trade networks; supporting areas of low population density by investment in forests and agriculture.

In a nod to his audience, Costa also said it was "time for the regions to be heard."