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The Presidency of the Republic publishes the following communiqué:

1. The President of the Republic enacted, on 31 December ultimo, the decree-law that transfers to the State the liabilities of the banking sector pension funds, a procedure that was considered by the Government as completely indispensable to comply with the objective of bringing the public with the International Monetary Fund.

2. This is an extraordinary measure to reduce the budgetary deficit that does not contribute towards the sustainability of public finance since, with respect to national accounts, and in accordance with Eurostat criteria, the value of the transferred assets is accounted for as income in the year when the transfer occurs, whilst the present value of liabilities with pensions is not recorded as expenditure, although it will be charged to future budgets.

3. The Presidency of the Republic was advised that the procedure in question was the object of a strict set of analyses carried out in order to validate its neutrality, checked by the financial supervisors, including the Bank of Portugal and the Portuguese Insurance Institute, as well as by the national and community statistical authorities

4. The enacting decision was based on the assumption that the budgetary objectives will be met in the future through current measures and structural reforms, in order that the consolidation of the public accounts does not depend upon such measures, whose exceptional and unrepeatable characteristics, as pointed out in Parliament by the Minister of Finance, were duly registered by the President of the Republic.

5. Lastly it should be underlined that the enacting procedure took into account the version that was sent by the Government to the Presidency of the Republic on 5 December it being established that the same essentially corresponds to the bill approved at the Council of Ministers on 30 December.