UTAO (budgetary watchdog) alerts to three risks of State Budget

Even before State Budget negotiations have concluded – and with all indications that the government is prepared to cede to at least some of the demands of the left-wing – budgetary watchdog UTAO (full title: technical unit of budgetary support) has alerted to three significant risks of the document as it stands. One ‘weaker economic growth than projected in the macro-economic scenario’; two ‘inversion of eurozone political monetary orientation’ – and three rules of budgetary discipline will be back in 2023 (at which point Portugal looks set to be mired in non-compliance).