Portugal's President, Cavaco Silva, has until January 6th to pass or to veto the 2014 budget. The President already has sent the budget to the Constitutional Court for its opinion.
The musings and conclusions of the Court's judges will have been received by the end of Christmas Day.
Cavaco Silva now has until January 6th to decide what to do in the light of the advice and opnion he has received from the Constitutional Court.
The head of state can pass or veto the state budget but if he lets it go through he is still able to ask for the auditing of various sections if he is not happy with them, as he did with the last state budget.
If Cavaco Silva decide to ask for a full audit by the Constitutional Court there is no deadline by which he must receive a ruling. When this happened with the 2013 State Budget the judges announced their decision at the beginning of April. If there is a similar delay this year the prime minister and his coalition partners will be in an unenviable fiscal limbo.
With the end of the bailout period in June any budget approval delay may serve to spook those international funders upon whom Portugal then will be dependent for cash.
