Analysis of the General Government Account 2017

The report presents the General Government budget developments for 2017 and a comparative analysis of these developments taking into account the goals set by the Ministry of Finance for the deficit and for the public debt.

The analysis is based on data released on March 26, 2018 in the first notification of 2018 under the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) published by Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE) and quarterly national accounts by institutional sector for the fourth quarter published by INE and Bank of Portugal.

The data underlying this report are of a preliminary nature and are therefore subject to possible revisions, as was the case with previous quarters.

The public administration budget aggregates analysed in this report are presented in national accounts and without adjustment of the effects of temporary measures, non-recurring measures and special factors. However, these adjustments are presented and justified in the text where such treatment is relevant to allow a better assessment of the fiscal consolidation effort.

However, there may be differences in the classification of the measures considered in the adjustment between the references used (State Budgets 2017 and 2018; Stability Program 2017-2021) and the one used in this analysis of the implementation by the Portuguese Public Finance Council (CFP). Regarding public debt, the factors that, besides the deficit, explain the variation of this indicator are analysed in detail.

Date of last update: 17/04/2018