Portugal’s austerity budget sent to court to ‘assess its fairness’

Portugal's president Aníbal Cavaco Silva said that he will send Budget 2013 to the Constitutional Court, after the austerity budget was deemed controversial.

The Portuguese president himself said that the budget didn't treat citizens fairly, and hit some of them worse than others.

Addressing the nation on television, Cavaco Silva admitted that tax hikes and a reduction in social services would affect everyone, but some more than others.

"This situation raises questions about the just and equal share of the burden," he said. The tax rises for most workers are equivalent to a month's wages.

The country has to meet the terms of a 78 billion euro bailout deal from the eurozone and IMF.

President Cavaco Silva made the surprise announcement in his New Year's speech, the day after signing the budget into law.

"On my initiative, the Constitutional Court will be called on to decide on the conformity of the 2013 state budget with the constitution of the republic," he said.

In his speech he also said the country was in a vicious circle of austerity and recession and acknowledged that Portugal's foreign debt, now twice as high as Portugal's annual output, was unsustainable.

The opposition Socialists had already questioned the validity of the tax hikes and had threatened to take them to the Constitutional Court if the president did not.