Nazaré da Costa Cabral and Carlos Marinheiro in seminar about the quality of public finances

The Chair of CFP, Nazaré da Costa Cabral, and the non-executive member of the Senior Board of CFP, Carlos Marinheiro, attended the seminar "Quality of Public Finances in Portugal", in December 2, which took place in the European Commission Representation in Portugal premises.

In their presentation, the "Challenges in Implementing the Budget Framework Law (LEO) 2015” were highlighted, since there are two applicable LEOs at the same time – Law 91/2001 and successive amendments, as well as the new LEO, Law No. 151/2015 of 11 September.

The two speakers reinforced LEO’s importance in the Portuguese budgetary system – "firstly by incorporating new budgetary principles and rules that are [...] principles/rules of budgetary outcome" – but stressed that, because it is not an organic law, "it is not sufficiently armored becoming more dependent on the political contingencies of the moment". The new LEO sought to introduce a culture of Public Financial Management from a multiannual perspective and was accompanied by a public accounting reform.

However, the LEO 2015 implementation delays, whose term of application has been set at 3 years, have led to its full effects being postponed to 1 April 2020. However, as has been pointed out not only by the CFP, but also by the Court of Auditors, advances are far below expectations, jeopardizing this goal.

The members of the CFP's senior board therefore expressed concern about the postponements and delays in LEO and new accounting regulation applications.

Date of last update: 02/12/2019