OECD wants Portuguese Public Finance Council to be protected from political interference

OECD wants Portuguese Public Finance Council to be protected from political interference

OECD wants CFP to be protected from political interference

The OECD is visiting Lisbon this Monday to address some key issues it has identified in the Portuguese Public Finances Council. Paris has three challenges and three recommendations for the CFP. 

The OECD has praised CFP’s leadership, yet noted that the Portuguese Public Finances Council must review its appointment mechanisms in order to ensure that there is a limitation to the political interference.

The institution, which is based in Paris, suggests that the process is changed, leaving it to the Parliament to shortlist candidates, and only then these may be subject to the final approval of the Government.

This recommendation is part of a report made by OECD’s experts, in which these analysts give a closer look into the functioning of the independent budgetary institutions of each OECD member, and it was presented this Monday in Lisbon.

Simultaneously, Teodora Cardoso ends her mandate as the president of the CFP, being substituted by Nazaré Costa Cabral, which was appointed by the Council of Ministers, last Thursday.

In the report, the OECD identified three major challenges, and it puts forward three recommendations for the CFP, in terms of independence, access to information and its image.

“The process of nomination for CFP’s leadership is not totally protected from political interference. There is much which can still be done in order to reinforce CFP’s non-biased leadership, and it matters even more given the climate of increasing political fragmentation”, the report notes.