Glossary

State net financing needs are made up of i) budget deficit; ii) net acquisition of financial assets and iii) privatization revenues.

The savings rate of Households measures the share of the Households’ gross disposable income that was not spent on the acquisition of goods and services for final consumption. The savings rate can be positive, when the observed savings are positive, or negative, when the Households use existing savings to fund the acquisition of goods and services above their disposable income.

Seasonality is the presence of variations that occur at specific regular intervals of less than a year, such as on a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. Seasonality can be caused by various factors, such as weather, vacations, weekend periods, and public holidays, and consists of periodic, repetitive, generally regular and predictable patterns in the levels of a time series. It differs from cyclical variation in that the latter may not occur over regular and/or predictable periods of time. A simple method for minimizing seasonal effects in time series is to use year-on-year change rate (e.g., comparing data against the same period in the previous year).

Secondary income represents current transfers between residents and non-residents. A current transfer is an entry that corresponds to the provision of a good, service, financial asset or other non-produced asset by an institutional unit to another institutional unit, where there is no corresponding return of an item of economic value. Current transfers consist of all transfers other than capital transfers. They are classified according to the institutional sector making or receiving the transfer in the compiling economy (General Government or other sectors). Examples of such transfers include emigrants' or immigrants' remittances, taxes on income or wealth, social contributions and benefits, insurance premiums and compensations, and other current transfers between Member States and the European Union.

The shadow price of carbon corresponds to the price of carbon consistent with a given climate objective that is used to assess the social value of a certain, investment or policy and its coherence with the environmental targets of a given country.

The six-pack is a set of six legal acts adopted in 2011 [Regulation No. 1173/2011 (on the effective exercise of budgetary surveillance in the euro area), No. 1174/2011 (on enforcement measures to correct excessive macroeconomic imbalances in the euro area), No. 1175/2011 (on the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies), No. 1176/2011 (on the prevention and correction of macroeconomic imbalances), all dated 16 November and Regulation No. 1177/2011 (on the acceleration and clarification of the application of the procedure on macroeconomic imbalances), all dated 16 November. Regulation No. 1176/2011 (on the prevention and correction of macroeconomic imbalances), all dated November 16, and Regulation No. 1177/2011 (on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure) and Directive 2011/85/EU (laying down requirements for Member States' budgetary frameworks), all dated November 8], with the aim of improving the monitoring of Member States' budgetary and macroeconomic policies (with some specific rules for the euro area). In the fiscal component, the six-pack is made up of: (i) two regulations, which strengthen the preventive and corrective aspects of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), for example by quantitatively defining what a "significant deviation" is and operationalizing the debt criterion; (ii) a regulation, which introduces a gradual and consistent process for imposing sanctions, as well as a reverse qualified majority voting system; (iii) a directive, which establishes the minimum requirements applicable to national fiscal frameworks. 
 

In the macroeconomic component, it introduces two regulations that create a formal framework for monitoring and correcting macroeconomic imbalances.

The Social Assistance Subsystem is a component of the Citizenship Social Protection System that aims to prevent and repair situations of need and socio-economic inequality or social exclusion. Its objectives are achieved through the development of social services and facilities or anti-poverty programs and through the granting of cash benefits of an occasional nature and under exceptional conditions or benefits in kind. The State, local authorities and private social solidarity institutions are the main entities that carry out social action in Portugal. See the Basic Law on Social Security (Law no. 4/2007, of January 16).

Social contributions are payroll taxes paid by employers and workers within the scope of the social security insurance system, with a view to creating rights to social protection in the event of one of the typical social events (illness, including occupational disease, unemployment, parenthood, old age, disability and death). They can be classified as actual contributions or imputed contributions.

Social benefits in cash are the benefits payable to households from social security funds (excluding reimbursements). These benefits are provided under social security schemes and can take the form of sickness and disability benefits, maternity benefits, family allowances, benefits for other dependents, unemployment, retirement, survivors' pensions, and other allowances and benefits.

The Social Security Financial Stabilisation Fund is an autonomous asset fund whose purpose is to ensure the financial stabilisation of the Social Security Welfare System. A portion of between two and four percentage points of employees' social contributions is paid into this fund until to the fund covers foreseeable pension costs for a minimum period of two years. The fund is also financed by  the annual balances of the Previdential System, and by income from the sale of assets or gains from financial investments.

The Social Security Funds are a sub-sector of the General Government (S1314) which includes the institutional units whose primary function is to provide social benefits (old age and disability pensions, sickness and unemployment benefits and social insertion income). Its main source of funding is compulsory contributions (some benefits are funded by the State Budget, under the terms of the Basic Law on Social Security).

The Citizenship Social Protection System is part of the Social Security System and aims to guarantee the right to minimum living standards for citizens in situations of economic need, prevent and eradicate situations of poverty and social exclusion and compensate citizens for increased family burdens, as well as in the field of disability and dependency. It includes three subsystems, the Social Action Subsystem, the Solidarity Subsystem and the Family Protection Subsystem, and is financed by transfers from the State Budget and tax revenue.

Social benefits in kind consist of individual goods and services provided free of charge or almost free of charge by public administrations and Non-Profit Institutions Serving Families (NPISHs) to individual households, whether these goods and services are bought on the market or produced as non-market output by units of public administrations or NPISHs. They can be financed by taxes, other public revenues or, in the case of NPISHs, donations or property income. Examples include health services contracted out to private providers, association contracts with private schools and reductions in public transport fares for social purposes.

The Solidarity Subsystem is a non-contributory component of the Social Security Citizenship Social Protection System that aims to prevent and eradicate situations of poverty and exclusion, guaranteeing benefits in situations of proven need and compensating for contributory or benefit shortfalls in the Social Security System. Its objectives are achieved through the granting of benefits such as the social insertion income, social pensions, social unemployment benefit, the solidarity supplement for the elderly and other social supplements. See the Basic Law on Social Security (Law no. 4/2007, of January 16).

Solvency is the fulfillment of the government's intertemporal budget constraint, that is, the updated value of primary balances expected in the future must be equal to or greater than the current value of public debt.

A CEDIM is a medium to long-term debt instrument, with maturity superior to one year, for exclusive subscription by public sector investors. It is considered a treasury application.

A CEDIC is a short-term debt instrument, with maturity from one month to one year, for exclusive subscription by public sector investors. It is considered a treasury application.

Special factors are considered to be operations that affect the general government deficit on an ad hoc basis, but which cannot be treated as temporary or one-off measures.

Spending reviews are tools for systematically analysing the government’s existing expenditure. They are clearly linked to the budget process. The purposes of a spending review include: 

• Enabling the government to manage the aggregate level of expenditure.

• Identifying savings or reallocation measures.

• Improving effectiveness within programmes and policies.

Source: OECD

See Risk Premium

The preventive arm of the SCP requires member states to submit a stability or convergence program to the European Commission each spring. Stability programs are submitted by eurozone states, while convergence programs (which also contain monetary strategies) are submitted by non-eurozone member states. Their main function is to allow the Commission and the Council to assess whether member states have achieved their medium-term budgetary objectives (MTOs) or are on an adjustment path towards them, including an assessment of compliance with the expenditure reference value. The consistency of member states' plans with the political guidelines adopted at European level is also analyzed.

The Stability and Growth Pact is a piece of legislation for the coordination of national budgetary policies in the European Union. Approved in 1997 and reformed in 2005, 2011 and 2024, it operationalizes the provisions of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Maastricht Treaty) on the surveillance of member states' public finances.

It consists of two parts:

(i) the preventive part, which considers the medium-term objective and the stability and convergence programs; and

(ii) the corrective part, which regulates the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP).

The State balance sheet is an accounting instrument that shows the State's financial situation and reveals its assets at a given point in time. It includes a set of transactions that are not reflected in the balance sheets of other public entities, such as the state's property assets and the state's direct debt.

The State Budget (SB) is a law of the Assembly of the Republic, which includes the forecast of revenues and the authorization or appropriation of expenditures, as well as an authorization of indebtedness, for the time horizon of one year. The State Budget Law contains:

(a) A wording of the Law;

(b) the accounting statements;

(c) Budgetary and financial statements. 

The SB draft law is accompanied by the respective report, the budgetary developments (with the breakdown of the revenues and expenditures of the central government) and by additional information.

The State Budget is approved in public budget accounting, and the report presents a (non-binding) forecast of its execution in national accounts for the General Government sector.

The Draft State Budget must be presented by the Government. The budgets of the services and bodies of the central administration and the Social Security subsector are integrated into the State Budget. The budget of the Regional and Local Administration is not included in this document, since they are autonomous budgets, approved by the respective competent bodies.

The State public debt corresponds to the debt in which the State subsector is the effective debtor, that is, it only includes the liabilities of this subsector, to which its revenues respond. This debt includes the accumulated capitalization of savings certificates.

The State surcharge is a levy on the part of the taxable profit exceeding a certain amount established in the CIT code, that is not tax-exempt, and that is obtained, either by companies based in the Portuguese territory that carry out a commercial, industrial or agricultural activity, or by non-resident companies that have a permanent establishment in Portugal.

The statement of budgetary performance established in Public Accounting Standard 26 - Accounting and Budgetary Reporting, as provided in Annex II of the Accounting Standardization System for Public Administration, approved by Decree-Law No. 192/2015, dated September 11th, is part of the budgetary reporting statements. It presents the amounts related to all receipts and payments that occurred during the accounting period, whether they relate to budget execution or treasury operations. This statement also highlights the corresponding balances (from the previous fiscal year and for the following fiscal year, overall balance, current balance, capital balance, and primary balance).

The statement of the execution of the Multiannual Investment Plan (PPI) established in Public Accounting Standard 26 - Accounting and Budgetary Reporting, as provided in Annex II of the Accounting Standardization System for Public Administration, approved by Decree-Law No. 192/2015, dated September 11th, is part of the budgetary reporting statements. Its purpose is to enable the monitoring of the annual execution of the multiannual investment plan, providing information regarding each investment program and project, including details on the manner of implementation, sources of financing, execution phase, financing of the annual component, overall value of the program/project, and financial execution from previous years, within the current period and expected for future periods.

Stock variables are measured at a given moment in time, such as the capital stock in Portugal in the 1st quarter of 2023 or the value of public debt in February 2020.

The stock-flow adjustment corresponds to the change in debt stock which is not explained by the budget deficit/surplus. The stock-flow adjustment can be grouped into three main categories: (i) net acquisition of financial assets; (ii) adjustment effects, which includes three subcategories, namely 1) transactions in those liabilities that are excluded from government debt; 2) valuation effects (including issuances above/below nominal value, difference between interest accrued and paid and redemptions of debt above/below nominal value); and 3) appreciation/depreciation of foreign-currency debt and other volume changes in financial liabilities; and (iii) statistical discrepancies. More details available in the CFP notebook on public debt nº 1/2013.

The structural budget balance (or structural balance) seeks to approximate the permanent component of the budget balance by removing the effect of the economic cycle and temporary and one-off measures from the observed balance. It is calculated by deducting the amount of temporary and one-off measures from the estimated budget balance adjusted for the cycle (some methodologies also exclude, when relevant, the effect of changes in asset prices and natural resources).

The structural balance net of special factors corresponds to the structural balance less special factors.

The structural primary balance is the structural balance excluding interest expenditure.

The structural primary balance net of special factors is the structural primary balance less special factors.

The structural primary expenditure is the primary expenditure deducted from one-off operations and from the cyclical component of expenditure.

The structural public expenditure aims to isolate the permanent components of expenditure, excluding: i) the influence of the economic cycle on budgetary variables (ie, cyclical component); ii) temporary measures and one-offs that affect expenditure.

The structure of General Government is made up of sub-sectors: Central Administration, which includes the State and Autonomous Funds and Services sub-sectors, Regional and Local Administration, which includes regional government bodies, municipalities and parishes, as well as the respective Autonomous Funds and Services, and finally the Social Security Funds.

Subsidies are unrequited transfers made by general government to resident producers, such as public (assimilated or participated) and private enterprises. The purpose of subsidies is to influence production levels, product prices, or the remuneration of production factors. Also considered as "Subsidies" are compensations arising from active employment and vocational training policies. Also included under this heading were expenses arising from some measures adopted in the context of the pandemic crisis by COVID-19, such as the simplified furlough scheme wrongly known in Portuguese as simplified “lay-off scheme”.

A sudden economic stop is an abrupt reduction of capital flows into a country’s economy, which is often accompanied by economic recessions and market corrections.

The distinction between supplementary budget and amending budget does not derive from national law, but was 'imported' from the lexicon of European budgetary law.

In the framework of the Community budget amendment procedure, the supplementary budget was "a profound change to the programme of appropriations initially provided for and adopted in the budget of the European Communities", the effect of which was "to increase the overall amount of commitment and/or payment appropriations or to finance one or more new actions without an overall increase in appropriations", whereas the amending budget only made "changes of a financial or technical nature to the budget without increasing the overall amount of appropriations and without providing for new actions".

Within the framework of national legislation (Budgetary Framework Law), budget amendments under the competence of the Assembly of the Republic are known as 'budget revision laws', and involve profound or structural changes involving: i) an increase in total expenditure; ii) an increase in the expenditure of each basic organic mission (previously, programme); iii) transfers of funds between basic organic missions.

An SDG-oriented budget is one that is organized according to the SDGs, SDG targets and indicators. Budgeting for SDG (B4SDG) can improve budget coherence, enhance accountability and comparability of national budgets, as well as budget performance evaluation. In an SDG-oriented budget national objectives are typically linked to the SDGs national targets, and key performance indicators are adopted for monitoring performance of national development. SDG budgeting can also be used to justify budget proposals and negotiate allocations to priority programmes, particularly during the drafting phase of the budget.

Incorporating SDG in the budget and budgetary process is a very country-specific process. Depending on what the primary objectives of the national stakeholders are in pursuing the Budgeting for SDGs agenda, there are models that are designed more for government insiders (MOF, line ministry professional staff, etc.) or external actors (parliaments, civil society, citizens).

For more on B4SDG see: UNDP Budgeting for the SDGs - Guidebook_Nov 2020.pdf

Statistical indicator produced by the Statistics Portugal (INE), of annual periodicity and whose geographic scope is the country. The observed statistical unit corresponds to the NUTS III sub-region, through indirect data collection and the variables that integrate the construction of the RDCI come from administrative procedures and statistical operations carried out in the context of the National Statistical System, which support the quantitative approximation to each one of the concepts that govern the construction of the index – competitiveness, cohesion and environmental quality.

The methodology for the elaboration of this index is available on the INE page at www.ine.pt, in the Metadata, Metadata system, Methodological documentation.