Portugal is to activate the safeguard clause of the European Union (EU) budget rules, as authorised by Brussels. This will allow the country to temporarily shoulder additional energy-related costs arising from the current crisis, without this being treated as a breach.
“The Commission understands, and it is also being requested in several countries, that it must now create an exemption clause, as it did for defence spending rules. We support that decision and we will trigger that clause, just as we did for defence,” announced the Minister of Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, as quoted by Lusa.
