Portugal’s minister of finance has assured the country will have a slight budget surplus this year as well in 2025, based on measures approved by the government, but admits that it will be necessary to assess “what margin there is” to accommodate other ‘parliamentary initiatives’. “The estimates we have today for 2024 and 2025, with what the government’s measures are, point to a slight budget surplus in 2024 and 2025, (but) we will have to analyse, in the budget, what margin there is to possibly accommodate any measures that may come from the opposition in the context of what may be the negotiation” of next year’s State Budget, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento told Portuguese journalists in Luxembourg today after an Ecofin meeting. The position comes after warnings from the Bank of Portugal about a possible return to a deficit due to measures like tax cuts and salary negotiations, which Joaquim Miranda Sarmento has already recognised as “weighing hundreds of millions of euros”. Even so, the executive’s estimate remains for this year and next, “a budget surplus of around 0.2%-0.3% of GDP, which was what was originally forecast” in what started out as the PS Socialists’ 2024 State Budget.
Government guarantees ‘slight’ budgetary surplus for 2024 and 2025
Currently 'caretaker' finance minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento. Image: Lusa
