“The Socialist Party (PS) was consulted and agreed. This is indeed a good example of how there are matters in which PS and the Social Democratic Party (PSD) can and should reach an understanding,” stated Pedro Nuno Santos to journalists when asked about Portugal’s decision to activate a clause allowing defense investment expenses to be excluded from the deficit.
According to the PS leader, “in this specific case, there was an agreement from the PS” regarding this decision.
“Not applying the exception clause could have been problematic for us because the exception clause allows for a different treatment of budgetary rules concerning defense expenses,” he justified.
For the PS leader, the absence of this mechanism would cause “a greater problem because it has consequences on the overall state expenditure.”
“Therefore, this clause, from this perspective, is beneficial as it provides us with greater flexibility regarding state spending,” he explained.
The Prime Minister confirmed today that Portugal has requested Brussels to activate a safeguard clause to exclude defense investments planned for the coming years from the European fiscal rules, specifically from deficit accounting.
Luís Montenegro mentioned that the Government has already had the opportunity to inform the PS, the largest opposition political force, about the procedure requested from the European Commission to activate this safeguard clause.
This information was initially released by the Ministry of Finance, which, in a note sent this morning, explained that activating this clause allows defense-related spending, up to a limit of 1.5% of GDP, to be excluded from the constraints imposed by the primary net expenditure ceilings defined in the National Medium-Term Budgetary Structural Plan (POENMP) for 2025-2028.
