European Commission says Portugal’s macroeconomic imbalances continue
The analysis was published this Monday as part of the "spring package" of the European semester of economic and budgetary policy coordination.
The European Commission said on Monday it had found that Portugal continues to experience macroeconomic imbalances, mainly due to high levels of public, private and external debt, in a context of low productivity growth.
The analysis was published this Monday as part of the “spring package” of the European semester of economic and budgetary policy coordination and is the result of the “in-depth analysis” that Brussels decided last autumn to carry out on a broad set of 12 countries, in which it identified imbalances.
Of the 12 countries subject to in-depth analysis, the Commission concluded in this spring exercise that 10 continue to present imbalances – it removed Croatia and Ireland from the list, given the progress made by these two member states – keeping Cyprus, Greece and Italy in a group of greater concern, for presenting “excessive imbalances”, while Portugal remains, with six other countries – Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden – in a batch of member states in which Brussels simply identifies “imbalances”.
Regarding Portugal, the EU executive pointed out that “vulnerabilities are related to high private, public and external debt, in a context of low productivity growth”, noting that, “after a temporary reversal in 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis, these vulnerabilities resumed their downward trajectory in 2021”, but “remain above pre-pandemic levels”.
