The former Finance Minister, Fernando Medina, stated on Tuesday evening that the proposed State Budget for 2026 (OE2026) presented by the Government will be “very difficult” to implement as the document was drafted.
“This budget will be very difficult, if not almost impossible, to implement as it was written. This budget is already the result of more than two years of wrong decisions in public finance matters,” the former Finance Minister, who is a member of the Socialist Party (PS), expressed in statements to SIC Notícias.
These remarks came after the Socialist General Secretary, José Luís Carneiro, announced a “demanding abstention” on OE2026 to “ensure political stability” in the country, despite criticizing the Government’s budget proposal.
The Socialist General Secretary, José Luís Carneiro, announced today a “demanding abstention” on the State Budget for 2026 (OE2026) to “ensure political stability” in the country, despite criticism of the Government’s budget proposal.
Lusa | 02:18 – 15/10/2025
The announcement followed a meeting of the PS National Political Commission, which concluded early in the morning, and occurred after a meeting on Tuesday with the PS parliamentary group regarding the party’s position on OE2026.
According to the PS leader, there was a “general manifestation of support” in these two bodies for the abstention proposal, which he described as a “demanding abstention” towards a budget “that is not of the PS” and which he criticized in several respects.
“The document delivered by the Government to the Assembly of the Republic satisfies these basic conditions set by the Socialist Party for the Prime Minister. Meeting these requirements, the PS should honor the promise made to the Portuguese, not becoming a factor of political instability,” he justified.
This contribution to stability, in Carneiro’s view, allows the “execution of the Recovery and Resilience Plan in the coming year.”
“Without giving any pretext for any excuses from the AD Government. It will not excuse itself with the options of the Socialist Party,” he contended.
This “demanding abstention,” according to Carneiro, “is the expression of firm but also constructive and responsible opposition.”
“We assume without hesitation that this is not the PS budget. With the PS Government, this would be a substantially different budget in measures and goals. This is a budget that does not respond to our economic policy choices, does not respond to our social policy choices, does not respond to our vision of the country’s development, nor to our strategic options in various sectors of activity,” he criticized.
According to the PS General Secretary, this is “a budget empty of ambition and content” and “without a strategy to improve the economy and family life.”
“It is a budget that, despite continuing to degrade public accounts, is devoid of decisive measures to support families and businesses. With this budget, the Government admits it failed in its economic policy commitments,” he accused.
Asked whether the abstention applies only to the generality or if it will be the PS’s position in the final global vote, the PS leader stated that “it now depends on what happens in the specialty,” refusing to allow the document to be distorted with the introduction of red lines that the Socialists had rejected.
“The general principle is to contribute to stability, which means that the abstention is for the entire budget, but it is evident that it will also depend greatly on how the Government views the parties, in this case, the Socialist Party, in the context of dialogue in the specialty,” he said, assuring that he will not depend his vote on the government’s “acceptance or not” of the PS proposals.
Despite the “guarantee of stability” he wanted to convey to the Portuguese, Carneiro made it clear that the PS does not identify with this budget and anticipated areas where it should present measures, such as ensuring that lower pensions are not reduced and “minimizing the increase in the cost of living, particularly in the acquisition of essential food products, as well as housing costs.”
The increase in support mechanisms for former combatants, the introduction of a reduced withholding tax in IRS for firefighters’ complementary services, the strengthening of business competitiveness, the stimulation of economic growth, and the reduction of companies’ context costs are other aspects that the PS wants improved, as well as the revision of the Local Finance Law.
