Portugal had the third highest deficit in the European Union (EU) in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2015 (4.4%) and the second highest public debt (129%), according to Eurostat, the EU statistics office.

The second worst deficit was in Spain (5.1%) and the worst annual deficit is in Greece at 7.5% of GDP.

The other three countries with deficits of over 3% of GDP were the UK (4.3%), France (4.1%) and Croatia (3.3%).

In terms of overall public debt, Italy had the highest ratio (177% of GDP), followed by Portugal (129%), Cyprus (108%) and Belgium (106%).

Portugal and Spain are under the excessive deficit procedure and run the risk of having structural and investment funds suspended by the EU, even though the fines have currently been suspended.