António Pedro Santos / Lusa
Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, Minister of Finance
Questions about sustainability and surplus realization. Most of the difference related to public expenditure.
The Public Finance Council (CFP) warned this Thursday that the surplus planned not State Budget for 2026 is supported by specific measures and extraordinary revenues, raising doubts regarding the sustainability, as well as your concretization.
“The budget proposal for 2026 presents the forecast of a global budget balance, supported, in part, by extraordinary recipes and on assumptions that reflect, in some cases, unfounded changes to the normal dynamics of expenditure”, reads the Analysis report of the CFP State Budget proposal for 2026.
The entity considers that “although this strategy allows us to project a positive budgetary result and the continued reduction of the public debt ratio, it raises doubts regarding its sustainability, recalling practices that in the past limited the transparency and credibility of budgetary policy“.
“To ensure the sustainability of public finances, it is It is essential to favor a budgetary balance that is less dependent on cyclical factors and specific measures. This balance must be achieved without compromising productive public investment, thus also guaranteeing the sustainability of economic growth and intergenerational equity”, argues the CFP.
O executive aims to achieve surpluses of 0,3% of GDP in 2025 and 0.1% in 2026. As for the debt ratio, it is estimated to reduce to 90.2% of GDP in 2025 and 87.8% in 2026.
O CFP design a zero balance this year and a deficit of 0.6% of GDP for 2026.
It’s a difference of 2,300 million euros between the two predictions, highlights the . And most of it is related to the difference in public expenditure; an underbudgeting of expenditure by the Ministry of Finance, that is, the CFP estimates that much more public money will be spent than the Government predicts.
“The analysis highlights a potential underestimation by the Ministry of Finance of expenditure for the second half of 2025, a reading that is reinforced by incoherence of projected growth compared to the known execution of the year“, indicates the CFP.
The Council considers that the Ministry of Finance’s scenario “is based on a set of assumptions and forecasts that raise questions regarding the achievement of budgetary objectives”.
They exist factors such as a defense expenditure forecast that “appears to be below the effort made by Portugal within the scope of European cooperation”, as well as an underestimation of some components of primary current expenditure and capital expenditure.
Now about the intermediate consumption, the CFP highlights the acquisition of goods and services in the health program planned by the Government – which “is not properly substantiated nor is the impact on expenditure in accounts known.
In this analysis, the indicator of net expense, which is now used in European budgetary rules and whose values were corrected by the Government on October 22nd.
For 2025 and 2026, the growth rate of net expenditure is 5.5% and 4.8%, respectively, which, for this year, is higher than the commitment agreed in the Medium-Term National Budgetary-Structural Plan, while for 2026 it is lower.
Despite these differences, “taking into account the flexibility provided for in the national derogation clause regarding the increase in defense investment expenditure, the accumulated deviation from net expenditure foreseen in POE/2026 appears to be in line with the agreed trajectory”.
