Today, in the Council of Ministers, the government approved the Stability Program, which it will submit to parliament on April 15, a document based on unchanging policies and which does not yet include the measures set out in the executive’s program.
In a statement released after the end of the Council of Ministers meeting, the government revealed that it had “approved the update of the 2024-2028 Stability Program for submission to Parliament on April 15”.
The Minister for the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, specified at a press conference that after dialogue with the European Union institutions, the scenario and content of the Stability Program are based on “unchanging policies, and therefore do not reflect the discretionary options and measures” provided for in the Government Program, delivered to parliament today.
With the simplified version of the document and the no-policy-change scenario (i.e. which takes into account the measures already legislated and planned), the budgetary impact of the policy measures planned by the executive is left out.
The Government also decided that the presentation of the bill for the Major Options will be approved by the Government and sent to Parliament within 90 days of taking office.
The Budgetary Framework Law (Lei de Enquadramento Orçamental – LEO) stipulates that “the government must present the update of the Stability Program for the following four years to Parliament by April 15,” which then has 10 days to consider it.
Former Finance Minister Fernando Medina said in March that his administration was working on the Stability Program to make it ready for the next government.
“We will leave all the work prepared so that it can be handed over to the next government, so that the next government can integrate the policies it wants into the next Stability Program, to hand over to Brussels,” he told reporters in Brussels.
