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Portugal announces $1bn spending cuts to meet deficit
April 19, 2013, 12:30 pm

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The measures will allow Portugal to meet a budget shortfall of 1.3 billion euro, says Luis Morais Sarmento [Getty Images]

The Portuguese government announced on Thursday spending cuts worth $1 billion or some 0.5 per cent of its GDP in a fresh effort to meet its deficit reduction targets set by international lenders.

Portugal’s constitutional Court has rejected some of the austerity measures in the 2013 state budget.

Budget secretary of state Luis Morais Sarmento told a press conference that the new measures will affect spending on public sector staff, goods and services.

The measures will allow Portugal to meet a budget shortfall of 1.3 billion euros, which resulted from the Constitutional Court ruling earlier this month that some of government’s austerity measure are illegal, Sarmento said.

Representatives from the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank who were on a visit in Lisbon this week, failed to seek a political consensus between the government and the main opposition Socialist Party in further public spending cuts.

Under a 78 billion euro bailout agreement with the troika in May 2011 Portugal has been implementing a harsh austerity policy which has sparked widespread protests across the country in recent months.

Source: Agencies