Recommendation for a Council Recommendation with a view to bringing an end to the situation of an excessive government deficit in Portugal

On 2 December 2009, the Council decided, in accordance with Article 126(6) of the TFEU, that an excessive deficit existed in Portugal and issued a recommendation to correct the excessive deficit by 2013 at the latest, in accordance with Article 3 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1467/97[1] of 7 July 1997 on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure.

On 9 October 2012, the Council concluded that effective action had been taken but that unexpected adverse economic events with major unfavourable consequences for government finances had occurred. The Council therefore adopted a revised recommendation (the 'revised EDP recommendation') and recommended Portugal to correct the excessive deficit by 2014 at the latest.

Granting an additional year for the correction of the excessive deficit would require intermediate headline deficit targets of 5.5% of GDP in 2013, 4% of GDP in 2014 and 2.5% of GDP in 2015, which, based on the Commission services' latest update of the economic outlook for Portugal, is consistent with an improvement of the structural fiscal balance of 0.6% of GDP in 2013, 1.4% of GDP in 2014 and 0.5% of GDP in 2015. In parallel to the regular reviews of the Economic Adjustment Programme for Portugal as defined in Council Implementing Decision 2011/344/EU, monitoring of progress on implementation of its EDP commitments will be carried out at an interval of three months.

Portugal fulfils the conditions for the extension of the deadline for correcting the excessive general government deficit as laid out in Article 3(5) of Regulation (EC) No 1467/97 on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)394: Follow the progress of this recommendation through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:394:FIN

EUR-Lex: SWD(2013)394: Analysis by the Commission services of the budgetary situation in Portugal http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=SWD:2013:394:FIN

ESO: Background information: Commission takes steps under the Excessive Deficit Procedure http://www.europeansources.info/record/memo-commission-takes-steps-under-the-excessive-deficit-procedure/

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