Brussels demands 0.6% reduction in deficit, Centeno delivers 0.3% plan
The State Budget 2019, is predicting a deficit decrease of 0.3% of GDP, which is half of what Brussels expected. This is the main indicator for analysing budget consolidation efforts at EU level.
Although Portugal has been cleared out from the Excessive Deficit Procedure, the country still has to comply with the Stability and Growth Pact, which imposed a structural deficit correction of 0.6 percentage points.
However, Centeno’s papers show otherwise: the Portuguese government will commit to a 0.3% of GDP deficit reduction, which means €600m in budget consolidation efforts.
The structural balance is the indicator used by the European Commission to observe the real effort a country has made in terms of budget consolidation.