Even if public accounts will slide towards a situation of “small deficits”, especially following the increase in current expenditure and public investments that will occur under the PTRR (the Portugal Transformation, Recovery and Resilience plan), the country and the government will be able to continue to say that “public finances are balanced”, stated the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro.
In the fortnightly debate taking place this Thursday, in Parliament, in Lisbon, and in response to the CDS deputy, Paulo Núncio (on whether or not the government has room to respond to the crisis caused by the storms), Montenegro responded clearly: there is room and even if the budget balance goes from the current surplus to a deficit, there will be no major problems.
“The deputy raises a question that is in fact very pertinent. We, due to the economic and fiscal performance we had, both in 2024 and 2025, also created economic and financial resilience so that today we can tell people that we are in a position to have extraordinary support, to have a volume of investment that was not initially foreseen and at the same time fight for balanced public finances”, said the head of government.
And he added: “I am convinced that we can have this plan [PTRR] and combine this with balanced public finances and that, if one day, this means small deficits, they will still be balanced public finances in light of our responsibilities towards Europe and our partners”, said Montenegro.
The PRTT is approved this Friday by the Council of Ministers.
The country will have ended the year 2025 with a budget surplus slightly above 0.3% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Minister of Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, suggested in January.
For this year, the State Budget target was to reach a surplus of 0.1% of GDP.
The preliminary total damage that the storms caused in the country was estimated a few weeks ago at four billion euros by the Minister of Economy, Manuel Castro Almeida.
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