Portugal’s Prime Minister, Opposition Leader Schedule Talks on Budget

(Bloomberg) -- Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro and Socialist opposition leader Pedro Nuno Santos will meet on Sept. 27 to hold talks about the 2025 budget after previously failing to agree on scheduling discussions earlier this month.

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The government accepted the proposed date for the meeting, the Socialist Party said in an emailed statement on Sunday night. The opposition group said the government had suggested holding meetings on two other occasions, and these ended up not taking place. The first meeting didn’t happen because the government didn’t send the budget data requested by the opposition leader in time to start the negotiations, according to the Socialist Party’s statement.

The prime minister’s office said in a separate statement that the premier had been trying to schedule a meeting and that hadn’t happened until now due to the Socialist leader being unavailable. “The approval of the budget is in the national interest and the government won’t contribute to any political instability,” it said.

The budget, due to be presented in October, may be a key test for the prime minister’s minority government, which took office in April after the center-right AD coalition’s narrow election win over the Socialists. Premier Montenegro needs to find backing from other parties to get approval for budgets and other measures, and may have to compromise on key policies such as tax cuts to pass legislation.

The government, which held talks about the budget with officials from different parties earlier in September, has said it aims to post budget surpluses of about 0.2% to 0.3% of gross domestic product in the next four years, and forecasts economic growth of about 2% in 2024 and 2025.

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