Portugal has a few days in which to submit its 2016 State Budget or face proceedings from Brussels.
The European Commission will act, according to the European Commissioner for the Euro and Social Dialogue, Valdis Dombrovskis, who said that Portugal needs to submit its budget to avoid breaking the rules.
The Latvian eurocrat added that he was in "permanent contact with the Portuguese authorities," but did not specify what steps the EC executive would adopt if the government continues without presenting at least an outline 2016 budget.
The deadline was on October 15th and infringement proceedings may start unless there is some action or plausible excuse from Lisbon.
The European budget rules are clear and include a degree of flexibility, especially when a general election coincides with the budget deadline as it has in Portugal's case
If this is the case, the EC will accept a ‘business as usual’ budget that can be changed later but Portugal has failed to follow even this forgiving protocol and is the first European state ever to have treated the EC rules that every other state has managed to follow, election or no election.
The Commission now will have to send a formal demand to Lisbon insisting on at least a provisional budget.
Finance Minister, Maria Luís Albuquerque, (pictured) wrote to Brussels on October 2nd to say the budget would be late and Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said to Brussels on the deadline day that he would not be submitting a budget as he is still working on it.
Comments
But, in a country with no history of politics, what is the alternative? The left wingers now heading for government have totally wacky intentions to continue featherbedding the public sector, reinstating their wage cuts and even re-privatise TAP. Even though TAP already has about a billion euros of debt.
And the leftwingers will now want to reward their soldiers for loyal support - jobs for the boys - so expect an even larger public sector wage bill. Just as in Greece doing exactly the opposite of 'common sense'.
But then these were only ever soundbites lifted out of the manifestos of developed countries leftwinger parties. Totally different here is that the only thing that matters in Portuguese politics is will it upset the owner / manager elite who actually own and run Portugal ?
If the owner / manager elite have to pay in any way, such as in higher minimum wages or re-opened crime cases - then forget it.