The Finance Minister informed Parliament today that despite the completion of the "emergency period" of the past three years, the country continues to face challenges.
"We still have many challenges ahead. We continue to be in a situation of excessive deficit this year, we have a high debt. This calls for continued effort, not with the same intensity they we have had in the last three years, the emergency phase is already over, but that does not mean that everything is resolved," according to Maria Luis Albuquerque.
Deputy Prime Minister Paulo Portas said that after the Troika’s exit, Portugal is still under the Budgetary Treaty’s excessive deficit procedure so is not clear to act independently in budgetary terms and is being observed carefully by funders and the international financial markets.
The Socialists asked whether it had been worth the government "pushing the country into this tragedy," concluding that the indicators show that it had not been "worth destroying 400,000 jobs."
Portas said he was "appalled" with the line of questioning from socialist Pedro Marques, and criticised the "total amnesia and denial" of the MP, claiming that it was the Socialists that had doubled the debt in just a few years of office.
With the summer break over and parliament back in session the next big job is for Albuquerque to get the 2015 Budget passed and then to explain to the Troika, which visits shortly thereafter, the methodology used to balance the figures next year which now include a €1.5 billion annual interest payment on the €72 billion advanced by the nation's funders.
The taxpayer already is involuntarily supplying a record €37 billion in taxes annually to help fund the government's failure to reduce its expenditure as it had promised.
The poor balance of trade figures due an uplift in domestic demand, additonal billions paid out to stop privately owned BES going under and the new accountability for Portugal railway company's debt all will have contributed to a new 2015 budget that will see the taxpayer carrying the can.
