Portugal’s 2019 State Budget aims for a deficit of just 0.2%

Paul Rees 18 September 2018

MinisterCentenoFinance Political parties are still involved in negotiations but Finance Minister, Mario Centeno, is determined that his last budget will be an historic one, the lowest deficit for Portugal since the 1974 Revolution.

"The value of the deficit in the State Budget will be 0.2% of GDP - which is technically a zero deficit - but over the course of 2019 it is very likely to reach zero or to end the year with a slight budgetary surplus," said Marques Mendes in his weekly commentary on SIC.

According to Mendes, Mário Centeno aims to hand PM António Costa a key political asset, "It is very difficult to criticise a State Budget with a zero deficit."

Centeno, current chairman of the Eurogroup as well as Portugal's Finance Minister, is rumoured to be leaving government at the end of the current administration in the autumn of 2019, "to concentrate on an international career," according to the commentator.

Comments

+1 #2 Peter Booker 2018-09-19 08:39

But it is easier to criticise the method by which the state budget is brought to a zero deficit. Like mistreating the teachers…… One of Centeno´s predecessors in this role, more successful in achieving a surplus budget, was of course António de Oliveira Salazar. And his methods are also not universally admired.

+2 #1 Jeff Brown 2018-09-18 20:54

Sorry - without Gromit I for one cannot take this chap seriously. They brought us so much enjoyment as a duo.
How did such a successful partnership fall apart, was it entirely down to such different cultures, one Iberian moving into politics - the other a dog in the north of England staying put?

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