Ecofin takes Portugal out of Excessive Deficit Procedure

By TPN/Lusa, in News · 18-06-2017 09:29:00 · 0 Comments

The Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Union (Ecofin) has closed the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) applied to Portugal since 2009, following a recommendation from the European Commission last month.

The Ecofin Council's decision means that Portugal is leaving the EDP after eight years and moves from the corrective arm to the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP).

The European Commission decided last month to recommend the closure of the EDP applied to Portugal after the country reduced its deficit to 2.0% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2016, below the 3% target set out in the SGP, and following its own economic forecasts, which anticipate the country will continue to have a deficit below that level in 2017 and 2018, thus ensuring a sustainable deficit path.

With this formal decision of the Council, which also covers Croatia, only four Member States (France, Spain, Greece and the United Kingdom) come under the corrective arm of the SGP, while in 2011 this figure was 24.