New austerity package of up to 1.4 billion euros on Holy Tuesday was announced by the Government of Portugal, in order to reduce its budget deficit to 2.5% of GDP in 2015 in order to satisfy its creditors.

These measures mainly concern cuts in ministries and state companies’ expenditures “without having to ask the Portuguese for additional sacrifices”, as was assured by Minister of Finance, Maria Luis Albuquerque.

The amount of cuts for 2015 was decreased by improving the economic situation in Portugal and the -greater than expected- reduction in the fiscal deficit in 2013 at 4.9% of GDP, below the 5.5$ target set by the Portuguese government and lenders of the country.

The IMF had asked Portugal to inform it on measures to be taken before the end of the day, as a prerequisite to give the green light for the release of the new 900 million euro tranche.

Without these measures, the eleventh evaluation of the implementation of the Portuguese program could not have been completed by the Troika, as warned by PM Pedro Passos Coelho in the beginning of April.