The National Institute of Statistics today announced that the budget deficit last year was 7.2% of gross domestic product (GDP) and not 4.5% as previously had been reported.
This huge increase, a body blow to the Passos Coelho executive less than two weeks before the general election, is due to the inclusion in the 2014 accounts of the €4.9 billion used to sort out the BES mess in creating the ill-fated Novo Banco.