Brussels, 21/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is looking at the role of the Portuguese constitutional court in application of the Portuguese aid programme that came into force in May 2011, explains a memorandum dated 15 October prepared by the Commission's office in Lisbon.
The Commission is looking into the danger that Portuguese high court judges might affect the proper outcome of the reform process. In exchange for a €78 billion aid programme granted in 2011 and due to expire in June 2014, the troika of lenders (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) has imposed a series of austerity measures on the country, some of which have been thrown out by the constitutional court following appeals against the measure by the opposition. In recent months, the court has rejected three separate batches of measures drawn up with the country's lenders, such as rules to make it easier to make civil servants redundant, which caused a rift in the government in July. Vitor Gasapr, the previous finance minister, resigned, saying that the programme was impossible to implement.
The media picked up on the memorandum at the weekend. It is informal and does not make any political recommendations. It simply provides information, relating the facts and giving a summary of publicly published assessments and political statements. The Portuguese press reports that last week, the new deputy prime minister with responsibility for relation with the troika, Paulo Portas, warned that the troika might demand a change to the constitution if the austerity measures are not implemented.
In the memorandum, the Commission says that this is not the first time that questions have been raised about potential bias among the judges of Portugal's supreme court, but the matter is more acute against the current crisis. On Sunday, 50,000 people demonstrated against the new austerity measures announced by the government as part of the country's budget for 2014. The memorandum says that in this situation, any political activism by the court could have very serious consequences for the country as monitoring of the constitutionality of the budget could determine the outcome of the aid plan.
Over and above the accusations of bias, the report focuses on the negative role of the constitutional court as a threat to the aid programme, Portugal and the international partners. Portugal's planned budget for 2014 will be sent to the constitutional court in November and the Commission says that the opposition parties have already formulated negative views on the budget. The document concludes that a second bailout for the country (the government is currently only talking about a potential precautionary credit line at the end of the aid programme) would have very serious consequences for the country's economy. The Commission suggests that if the constitutional court issues negative rulings on the new measures, then it might force the country to require a second bailout. (SP/transl.fl)