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BE’s proposal to cancel the transfer of 476 million euros to Novo Banco, voted in favor on Thursday by PSD, BE, PCP, PEV, Chega and the unregistered deputy Joacine Katar Moreira, abstaining from PAN and CDS PP, “is a circus number, irresponsible is true, but it does not violate the Constitution, nor the Framework Law of State Budgets ”, the lawyer and former Secretary of State for Finance in the second Government of António Guterres (PS), Rogério Fernandes Ferreira, told Lusa .
The former professor of Public Finance and Financial and Budgetary Law, at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, understands that what the Constitution and the Budget Framework Law (LEO) impose is “only that the Budget Law of the Indicates ‘take into account’ and ‘take into account’, respectively, ‘expenses derived from the law and the contract’ ”.
“Therefore, they oblige the Government, in the first place, to include them in the budget bill that it presents to the Assembly of the Republic. But they do not force the deputies, when discussing and approving the budget law, to keep this record. They can approve it or reject it or modify it ”, advocates the member of the working group appointed by Sousa Franco for the preparation of the draft Budget Framework Law published by the Ministry of Finance.
According to the former president, “the powers in this matter and in this period, of the Government and the Assembly of the Republic, are, respectively, to propose and approve, or reject or modify the budget law proposal.”
“These powers are exclusive to each of these sovereign bodies and are absolute and cannot be delegated,” he said.
However, BE’s proposal, approved by parliament, prevents “the Government from fulfilling and honoring a prior contractual commitment that it has assumed on behalf of the Portuguese State”, whose associated expenditure “cannot be made if and while it is not included in budget”.
According to the lawyer, “the truth is that a possible breach of a contractual clause due to the impossibility of making the expense (not budgeted) will always generate civil liability (contractual) and compensation, either for consequential damages or loss of profits, without a doubt to be declared by judicial sentence ”.
The former professor of Public Finance also added that “also these ‘expenses derived from the judgments of any court’ must be taken into account and ‘considered’ in the budget law.”
“Now, during the budget execution, the deputies, even those who approved this BE proposal, cannot propose the inclusion of ‘new’ expenses”, under penalty of violating the braking law, explained Rogério Fernandes Ferreira to Lusa.
Thus, “either the expense finds its place in its own line or in the line of execution of the sentence -which certainly the estimated value will not allow it- or the circus will continue, imposing, already during the budget execution of 2021, a new proposal of Budget reform law of the Government’s own initiative ”, an amending budget, he concluded.
The Plenary of Parliament this Thursday confirmed the vote on the specialty of BE’s budget proposal, which cancels the transfer of 476 million euros from the Resolution Fund to the New Bank.
In a confusing vote that had to be repeated, after being summoned and debated in plenary, PSD, PCP, PEV, Chega and the unregistered deputy Joacine Katar Moreira joined their votes to BE to make this change possible, despite the votes in against the PS, Liberal Initiative and unregistered deputy Cristina Rodrigues, and abstention from CDS-PP and PAN.
The Minister of State and Finance, João Leão, has already admitted, in statements to Rádio Renascença and RTP, that the Government can go to the Constitutional Court to analyze the proposal.
In parliament, João Leão also said that the proposal to cancel the transfer to Novo Banco “violates the Budgetary Framework Law, which obliges the State to budget for the commitments assumed.”
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