Public Finance: Position and Constraints 2015-2019

The Report Public Finance: Position and Constraints 2015-2019 aim at characterising the state of Portuguese public finances, as well as the respective constraints, at the beginning of the annual cycle of updating the fiscal strategy underlying the Stability Programme, and of defining the options to be set out in the State Budget.

CFP thus seeks to contribute to the devising of a framework which ensures that fiscal policy takes into account the commitments made, and the medium and long-term implications of the decisions taken, therefore supporting the formation of expectations among economic agents that foster economic growth.

Due to the publication dates of the official base-year statistics – in this case 2014 – this Report uses estimates drawn up by CFP as to the economic and fiscal positions at the end of that year. The baseline scenario for 2015-2019 was elaborated under a no-policy-change assumption, described in detail in the body of the Report.

The aim of this exercise is to contribute to the defining of the background against which the new decisions will be taken, rather than to forecast economic or fiscal developments, which are clearly dependent on those decisions. When devising this scenario, CFP used not only its own models, but also other available macroeconomic forecasts, in particular those published by international institutions, by the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Portugal, and further took into account the forecasts of a number of private entities that regularly monitor the Portuguese economy.

Date of last update: 18/03/2015