Portugal’s 2023 draft state Budget is the first of four proposals aimed at securing “stability” and “commitment,” as well as convergence with the EU by the end of the parliamentary term, according to the PM. 

“This budget proposal is much more than the budget proposal for next year. It is the first of four budgets that, throughout 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, will implement the strategic vision and goals we set out to achieve,” António Costa stated during the opening of the parliamentary debate on the draft state budget for next year.

Costa added that the government’s main objective is to “guarantee that every year the country will be growing above the European Union average, getting closer every year to the most developed countries in Europe,” and he has already shown “that it is possible to make budgetary responsibility compatible with growth and with more social justice, while responding to the demands of the present, whether they be a pandemic or the effects of a war in the European continent.”

The prime minister went on to say: “In this budget, and the next three budgets until 2026, it will be no different. In the face of external instability, we present the country with a horizon of stability, confidence and commitment.”

António Costa, at the end of his speech, said that the proposed budget “strengthens investment and innovation, increases labour income, pensions and social benefits.

“We thus want to consolidate the convergence trajectory that we started in 2016 and that was only interrupted in 2020, due to the pandemic. In other words, we want to converge in 2022, in 2023, in 2024, in 2025 and in 2026. As we have already managed to do in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. 10 years of convergence, after practically 15 years of divergence,” he stated.

Another objective, said the PM, is to “increase the margin of budgetary options, with the reduction of the weight of public debt.

“Yes, we remain firm in the fulfilment of the goals we have set ourselves until 2026: to grow annually on average one percentage point above the eurozone; to increase from 45 to 48% the weight of wages in the GDP; to reduce the public debt to less than 100% of the GDP. And we will achieve these goals by continuing to respond to the various needs of the country,” he added.