Portugal latest EU country to announce support package as inflation hits 30-year high

Portugal is the latest EU member state to announce measures to support families as inflation hits a 30-year high. Prime Minister António Costa did not hesitate to reveal how much these will cost the state coffers, adding the measures are going to be safely adopted thanks to responsible budget management, "this new set of measures that this year alone will have an additional cost of 2.4 billion euros exclusively dedicated to families."

For Costa, helping struggling families is important, but he insists it must be done responsibly, adding that it is "essential that we managed to combine measures that in the short term help families to maintain their purchasing power but do not feed the spiral of inflation" and warned that giving out too much could "increase prices today and then they increase tomorrow, and we lose tomorrow what we increased today."

Extra help for nearly all

The measures include €125 to each citizen with an income under €2700 per month, plus €50 euros for each child in the family, while pensioners will receive an extra of 50%  top up to  their monthly payments.

The government also announced the reduction of the electricity tax from 13% to 6%, a measure that needs parliamentary approval. A support fund for companies is also planned.

In 2022, the national minimum wage remained fixed at €822 per month - or just under €10,000 per year, making it one of the lowest in the bloc.

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