‘Deadline for €4bn cuts in public sector spending extended to 2015’

The worsening Portuguese recession has led the troika to allow the government an extra year to reform the public finances. The government’s obligation to find €4bn in state spending cuts, which had had been ordered by 2014, will also now be pushed back until the end of 2015.
The decision comes after the EU-ECB-IMF Troika completed its seventh review of the Portuguese economy.
The government had planned to achieve deficit targets of 4.5 per cent for this year but this has now been increased to almost 5 per cent.
The ambitious target of cutting the public deficit to 2.5 per cent in 2014 will also be completely abandoned, with the level expected to remain at around the 2013 mark, adds the daily.