Portugal's public debt has risen an astounding €7 billion to 132.9% of GDP.
Despite punitive austerity measures, allegedly booming tourism receipts and, the public are told, a growing business sector, the government is presiding over a financial fiasco due primarily to its inability to tackle public sector expenditure and taking on over €70 billion in loans from the Troika.
For the deficit to go up at this stage of the game is a resigning issue and a reflection that policy is not working.
With further taxation measures being rigidly applied and a bureaucracy designed to stifle and bully entrepreneurs the public are running out of patience and of funds.
Record numbers of citizens are having their goods and houses seized by an increasingly uncaring regime that surely enough is dividing the haves and have nots. The population continues to shrink as younger workers move away to countries where skills are encouraged and nurtured and not seen as taxation opportunities.
The shocking figures were released today by Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU, and indicate that the number one country for fiscal incompetence was Slovenia, then Hungary - Portugal sits in third place with the Belgians.
In one year of government spin and economic hardship the headline figure for Portugal’s debt rose a further 5.5% from 2013's €209 billion, or from 127.4% of GDP to 132.9%.
Compared to Greece with a public deficit of 174% of GDP, Portugal is doing well, the difference in Greece is that the government is not expending energy in telling its population how swimmingly everything is going.
