The European Commission today announced that as part of its regular economic analysis of member states it has placed five of them in a ‘special monitoring’ category due to 'excessive economic imbalances.'
"We concluded that five countries, France, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria and Portugal, each have excessive imbalances that require determined political action and specific monitoring," said the Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Pierre Moscovici.
At a press conference brought forward from its Friday slot, the commissioner explained that Portugal has been placed in the naughty corner mainly due to its high debt which, despite years of austerity measures, continues to increase year on year.
"In Portugal, despite considerable progress in the implementation of the assistance programme, there remain important risks associated with high levels of debt, both internally and externally, and high unemployment, and therefore we concluded that Portugal should be in the category of ‘excessive imbalances' justified Moscovici.
The problem is due to Portugal slacking off during the post-rescue phase and Brussels already has warned about the loss of momentum from the government.
On a scale of one to six, Portugal is at level five and now is subject to ‘specific monitoring’ due to low growth, low inflation and high unemployment.
In the Winter Economic Forecast, Commissioner Moscovici accused Portugal of being behind in the "implementation of some consolidation measures" and that the country is at risk of missing the 2015 deficit target; 3 2%, against the 2.7% estimated by the Passos Coelho government.
Portugal's fiddled unemployment figures have not fooled Brussels for one minute as the figures released by the government bear little resemblance to the reality of the numbers of jobless.
This, coupled with the inexorable rise in borrowing, has led Portugal into the same category as Croatia when it comes to economic performance.