LISBON (Reuters) -Portugal’s parliament on Tuesday approved the centre-right minority government’s 2026 budget bill on its first reading thanks to an abstention by the opposition Socialist Party while the far-right Chega and most smaller parties voted against.
The bill targets slightly stronger economic growth of 2.3%, after a predicted expansion of 2.0% this year, and a small surplus for the fourth straight year despite new tax cuts for companies and lower-income households.
The 230-seat house approved the bill by 91-79 votes, with 60 abstentions.
Chega became the second-largest parliamentary force, with 60 seats, in a snap election last May while the Socialists came third, electing 58 lawmakers.
The spending plan must now pass a second and final vote on November 27 after discussions in the committees.
The projected budget surplus amounts to just 0.1% of gross domestic product, down from 0.3% in 2025, and Prime Minister Luis Montenegro has warned during the debate that “the margin for negotiating new measures is very small”.
Socialist leader Jose Luis Carneiro said that although the budget “is not credible”, his party’s abstention is intended to help maintain political stability, and urged the government to address a long-running housing crisis and bottlenecks in public healthcare.
(Reporting by Andrei Khalip and Sergio Goncalves, editing by David Latona)
