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Portugal's positive budget implementation another reason to reject EU sanction, says Left Bloc

Xinhua, July 26, 2016 Adjust font size:

Portugal's positive budget implementation in the first half of this year is another reason for it to reject the prospect of an European Union sanction for having an excessive deficit last year, the leader of Portugal's Left Bloc, Catarina Martins, said on Monday.

"The fact that we have positive figures for budget implementation is just another factor which should lead our country to reject the European blackmail for cuts, and to reject sanctions," she told journalists at the Palace of Belem in Lisbon, at the end of a meeting with the Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

Her comments came as European Finance ministers discuss a proposed fine on Spain and Portugal for breaching their deficit limits last year.

New measures for Portugal's structural and nominal deficit for this year and next year will be presented on Wednesday, along with the fines they intend to impose for the deficit breach.

Martins compared the current budgetary implementation of this year carried out by the current Socialist government backed by the Left Bloc and Communist Party, with that carried out by the centre-right coalition previously in power.

Official figures released on Monday show that the country's budget deficit decreased to around 2.87 billion euros (3.76 billion U.S. dollars) until June this year, meaning 971.2 million euros less than in the same period last year.

The leader of the Left Bloc also told the president on Monday that her party was determined to maintain its agreement with the Socialist Party and that she had "no reason for unrest" in this regard.

She added that her party would not agree to austerity measures in the state budget for 2017 but that there was no indications up to now that the Socialist Party intended not to respect their agreement.

The country's Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa came into power in November last year, pledging to put an end to austerity, claiming this would lead to more stability. The country is still being monitored closely by Brussels after exiting a 78-billion-euro bailout in 2014. Endit