Commission adopts Opinion on Portugal’s updated Draft Budgetary Plan

The Commission has today adopted its Opinion on Portugal’s updated Draft Budgetary Plan (DBP) for 2020, finding that it is at risk of non-compliance with the Stability and Growth Pact. The Commission invites the Portuguese authorities to take the necessary measures within its national budgetary process to ensure that the 2020 budget will be compliant with the Stability and Growth Pact. That requires Portugal to make further progress on the fiscal recommendations addressed to it by the Council in July 2019 and, in particular, achieving in 2020 the medium-term budgetary objective of a balanced budgetary position in structural terms. The Commission’s Opinion on the updated DBP will be discussed by the Eurogroup in due course. The DBP submitted by the Portuguese authorities in December 2019 updated the no-policy change DBP submitted in October 2019.