Montenegro allocates start-up deficit to “several contingencies”

“ Nif we were doing the math for the last 12 months, i.e. this first quarter of 2026 with the last three of 2025, our balance would be positive. But in any case, this first quarter has had several contingencies,” he began by telling Montenegro to journalists in New York when commenting on the data released today by the National Statistical Institute (INE).

“ It was the quarter in which we had to overcome the storms that struck the country and in which we had contact with the reality underlying the Middle East conflict, the increase in fuel prices and, by doing so, and by blocking the Strait of Ormuz also, a significant increase in several production factors that impact the price of many goods, in particular food goods,” he noted.

The head of the Portuguese Executive spoke to journalists after a visit by the Permanent Mission of Portugal at the UN in New York a few hours after the INE announced that Portugal started the year with a budget deficit of 0.7% of GDP, according to the data for the first quarter.

“So we did not have a quarter as we would have liked to have had, and from a budgetary point of view, we had this reflection. We had to give moratoriums to companies and people as well, to Portuguese and Portuguese who have credit for housing, for example”, explained the Prime Minister.

“ We had to attend to immediate recovery expenses. We had to give additional support with the VAT discount on oil products so that the impact of the price increase was not so great and this has budgetary implications,” he said.

Compared to the first quarter of 2025, there was a decrease in the balance in public accounts and national accounts. The budget balance has gone from balance (0,0%) to deficit.

The INE also explains that “due to the fractional payment measures of taxes imposed in the VAT code, an adjustment was made to the revenue of taxes on production and import during the period in which the payment obligation was generated”.

In the first quarter of this year, there was also the impact of the implementation of exceptional measures to defer the payment of taxes under the measures to support areas affected by the disaster declaration.

Between the end of January and the beginning of March, Portugal suffered the impact of the passage of the depressions Kristin, Leonardo and Marta, which killed and also several hundred wounded, displaced and displaced.

The storms, which reached the continental territory for about three weeks, especially in the Central, Lisbon and Vale do Tejo and Alentejo regions, caused the total or partial destruction of thousands of homes, businesses and equipment, the fall of trees and structures, the cutting of energy, water and communications, floods and floods, with losses of more than EUR 5 billion.

Despite the deficit recorded, Montenegro bet on a tone of optimism: “We are still clearly in time to reach the end of the year with balanced public accounts.”.

“ If not with a surplus, let it be with a levelened situation. Even I have had the opportunity to say this, if we had a small deficit of 0.1% or 0.2% of GDP, that would not be what would be dramatic, not even considered an imbalance. But we will try to reach the end of the year with a positive balance,” he said in New York.