Portugal 1976 Constitution (reviewed 2005)

Part II. Organisation of the economy

Title I. General principles

Article 80. Fundamental principles

Society and the economy shall be organised on the basis of the following principles:

1. Economic power shall be subordinated to democratic political power;
2. The public, private and cooperative and social sectors shall coexist in the ownership of the means of production;
3. Within the overall framework of a mixed economy, there shall be freedom of business initiative and organisation;
4. When so required by the public interest, natural resources and the means of production shall be publicly owned;
5. Economic and social development shall be democratically planned;
6. The cooperative and social sector shall enjoy protection in relation to the ownership of the means of production;
7. Organisations that represent workers and organisations that represent businesses shall participate in the definition of the main economic and social measures.

Article 81. Primary duties of the state

In the economic and social field the state shall be under a primary duty:

1. Within the overall framework of a sustainable development strategy, to promote an increase in people’s social and economic well-being and quality of life, especially those of the most disadvantaged persons;
2. To promote social justice, ensure equal opportunity and carry out the necessary corrections to inequalities in the distribution of wealth and income, particularly by means of the fiscal policy;
3. To ensure the full use of the forces of production, particularly by making every effort to ensure the efficiency of the public sector;
4. To promote the economic and social cohesion of the whole country by guiding development in the direction of a balanced growth in every sector and region and progressively eliminating the economic and social differences between towns and the country and between the coastal strip and the inland areas;
5. To promote the correction of the inequalities derived from the autonomous regions’ insular nature and encourage the said regions’ progressive integration into broader economic areas with a national or international scope;
6. To ensure the efficient operation of the markets, in such a way as to guarantee a balanced competition between businesses, counter monopolistic forms of organisation and repress abuses of dominant positions and other practises that are harmful to the general interest;
7. To develop economic relations with all peoples, while always safeguarding national independence and the interests of both the Portuguese people and the country’s economy;
8. To eliminate very large estates and restructure small farms;
9. To guarantee consumer rights and interests;
10. To create the legal and technical instruments needed to democratically plan economic and social development;
11. To ensure the existence of a science and technology policy that favours the country’s development;
12. To adopt a national energy policy that preserves natural resources and the ecological balance, while promoting international cooperation in this domain;
13. To adopt a national water policy that uses, plans and rationally manages water resources.

Article 82. Sectors of ownership of the means of production

1. The coexistence of three sectors of ownership of the means of production shall be guaranteed.
2. The public sector shall comprise such means of production as should rightly belong to and be managed by the state or other public bodies.
3. Without prejudice to the provisions of the following paragraph, the private sector shall comprise such means of production as should rightly belong to or be managed by private individuals or private groups.
4. The cooperative sector shall specifically comprise:
   1. Means of production that cooperatives possess and manage in accordance with cooperative principles, without prejudice to such specific provisions as the law may lay down for cooperatives in which the public sector holds a stake and are justified by the special nature thereof;
   2. Community means of production possessed and managed by local communities;
   3. Means of production operated by worker collectives;
   4. Means of production possessed and managed by nonprofit bodies corporate, the primary objective of which is charitable, particularly bodies of a mutualist nature.

Article 83. Requirements for compulsory purchase

The law shall lay down the means and forms of intervention in relation to, and for the public compulsory purchase of, means of production, together with the criteria for setting the applicable compensation.

Article 84. Public domain

1. The following shall belong to the public domain:
   1. Territorial waters, together with their beds and the adjacent seabed, and such lakes, lagoons and watercourses as are suitable for navigation or flotation, together with their beds;
   2. Airspace over Portuguese territory, above the recognised limit for proprietary or surface rights;
   3. Mineral deposits, mineral and medicinal water sources and natural subterranean cavities below the ground, save such rocks, ordinary earth and other materials as may habitually be used for construction;
   4. Roads;
   5. National railway lines;
   6. Such other property as may be classified as such by law.
2. The law shall define what property forms part of the public state domain, the public domain of the autonomous regions and the public domain of local authorities, as well as the rules, terms and conditions of use and limits governing it.

Article 85. Cooperatives and worker-management experiments

1. The state shall stimulate and support the creation and activities of cooperatives.
2. The law shall define the fiscal and financial benefits to be enjoyed by cooperatives, as well as preferential terms and conditions for obtaining credit and technical assistance.
3. The state shall support such worker-management experiments as are viable.

Article 86. Private businesses

1. The state shall encourage business activity, particularly that of small and medium-sized enterprises, and shall inspect fulfilment of the respective legal obligations, especially by businesses that engage in activities that are of general interest to the economy.
2. The state shall only intervene in the management of private businesses on a transitional basis, in cases that are expressly provided for by law and, as a general rule, subject to prior judicial ruling.
3. The law may define basic sectors in which private businesses and other bodies of a similar nature are forbidden to act.

Article 87. Foreign economic activity and investment

The law shall regulate economic activity and investment by foreign private individuals and bodies corporate, with the aim of ensuring that they contribute to the country’s development and defending national independence and workers’ interests.

Article 88. Abandoned means of production

1. Abandoned means of production may be expropriated under terms and conditions to be laid down by law, which shall pay due regard to the specific situation of the property of emigrant workers.
2. Means of production that are abandoned without good reason may also be the object of compulsory rental or operating concessions under terms to be laid down by law.

Article 89. Worker participation in management

The workers of units of production in the public sector shall be ensured an effective participation in the said units’ management.

Title II. Plans

Article 90. Objectives

The objective of economic and social development plans shall be to promote economic growth, the harmonious and integrated development of sectors and regions, the just division of the national product between persons and between regions, the coordination of economic policy with the social, education and cultural policies, the defence of the rural world, the preservation of the ecological balance, the defence of the environment and the quality of life of the Portuguese people.

Article 91. Drawing up and implementation of plans

1. National Plans shall be drawn up in accordance with the laws governing their Major Options and may incorporate specific programmes with a geographic and sectoral scope.
2. Government bills in relation to the Major Options shall be accompanied by reports setting out the grounds therefore.
3. National Plans shall be implemented on a decentralised, regional and sectoral basis.

Article 92. Economic and Social Council

1. The Economic and Social Council shall be the body with responsibility for consultation and concertation in the economic and social policy domain, shall take part in drafting the Major Options and the economic and social development plans, and shall exercise such other functions as may be allocated to it by law.
2. The law shall lay down the composition of the Economic and Social Council, which shall particularly include representatives of the Government, the organisations that represent workers, business activities and families, the autonomous regions and local authorities.
3. The law shall also lay down the way in which the Economic and Social Council is organised and operates, together with the status and role of its members.

Title III. Agricultural, commercial and industrial policies

Article 93. Agricultural policy objectives

1. The objectives of the agricultural policy shall be:
   1. To increase agricultural production and productivity by providing agriculture with adequate infrastructures and human, technical and financial resources that will work towards an increase in competitivity and to ensure the quality of its products, their effective marketing and sale, an improved supply for the country and a rise in exports;
   2. To promote the improvement of the economic, social and cultural situation of rural and agricultural workers, the development of the rural world, the rationalisation of the structure of land ownership, the modernisation of the business fabric, and the access by those that work the land to ownership or possession of the land itself and of such other means of production as they directly employ thereon;
   3. To create the conditions needed to achieve effective equality between those who work in agriculture and other workers and to prevent the agricultural sector from being disadvantaged in its exchanges with other sectors;
   4. To ensure the rational use and management of the soil and other natural resources and to maintain their regenerative capability;
   5. To encourage farmers to form and join associations and to directly work the land.
2. The state shall promote an agrarian planning and reconversion and forestry development policy, in accordance with the ecological and social factors that condition the country.

Article 94. Elimination of very large estates

1. The law shall regulate the resizing of farming units that are excessively large from the point of view of the agricultural policy objectives, and, in the case of expropriation, shall provide for the right of each owner to the corresponding compensation and to the retention of an area that is sufficient to ensure the viability and rationality of his own farm.
2. Without prejudice to the stipulation of an experimental period prior to the grant of full title in order to determine whether the land in question is being used effectively and rationally, expropriated land shall be handed over for either ownership or holding, as laid down by law, to small farmers – preferably family farming units, to rural workers’ or small farmers’ cooperatives, or to other forms of worker operation.

Article 95. Resizing of small farms

Without prejudice to the right of ownership and as laid down by law, the state shall promote the resizing of farming units that are smaller than that which is suitable from the point of view of the agricultural policy objectives, particularly by means of legal, fiscal and credit incentives for their structural or merely economic integration, particularly in a cooperative form, or by measures designed to join parcels of land together.

Article 96. Forms of use of non-owned land

1. The law shall regulate the rules governing the rental and other forms of use of non-owned land in such a way as to guarantee the farmer’s security and legitimate interests.
2. The fee-farming and colony systems shall be prohibited and the conditions that farmers need to put an effective end to the agricultural partnership system shall be created.

Article 97. State assistance

1. In pursuit of the agricultural policy objectives the state shall provide preferential support to small and medium-sized farmers, particularly when they are integrated into family farming units, are sole farmers or are associated in cooperatives, as well as to agricultural workers’ cooperatives and other forms of worker operation.
2. Such state assistance shall particularly comprise:
   1. The grant of technical assistance;
   2. The creation of forms of marketing and sales support upstream and downstream from production itself;
   3. Support for the coverage of risks resulting from unpredictable or uncontrollable climatic or phytopathological conditions;
   4. Stimuli to encourage rural workers and farmers to form and join associations, particularly by forming producers, purchasing, sales, processing and service cooperatives and other forms of worker operation.

Article 98. Participation in drawing up the agricultural policy

The participation of rural workers and farmers in drawing up the agricultural policy shall be ensured via the organisations that represent them.

Article 99. Commercial policy objectives

The objectives of the commercial policy shall be:

1. Healthy competition between commercial agents;
2. The rationalisation of distribution circuits;
3. To combat speculative activities and restrictive commercial practises;
4. The development and diversification of external economic relations;
5. Consumer protection.

Article 100. Industrial policy objectives

The objectives of the industrial policy shall be:

1. The increase of industrial production within an overall framework of the modernisation and adjustment of social and economic interests and the international integration of the Portuguese economy;
2. The reinforcement of industrial and technological innovation;
3. The increase of the competitivity and productivity of industrial businesses;
4. Support for small and medium-sized enterprises and, in general, for ventures and businesses that generate jobs and foster exports or substitutes for imports;
5. Support for the international prominence of Portuguese businesses.

Title IV. Financial and fiscal system

Article 101. Financial system

The financial system shall be structured by law in such a way as to guarantee the accumulation, deposit and security of savings, as well as the application of the financial resources needed for economic and social development.

Article 102. Bank of Portugal

The Bank of Portugal shall be the national central bank and shall perform its functions as laid down by law and in accordance with the international rules by which the Portuguese state is bound.

Article 103. Fiscal system

1. The fiscal system shall aim to satisfy the financial needs of the state and of other public bodies and to ensure a just distribution of income and wealth.
2. Taxes shall be created by laws, which shall determine their applicability and rate, fiscal benefits and such guarantees as may accrue to taxpayers.
3. No one shall be obliged to pay taxes that are not created in accordance with this Constitution, are retroactive in nature, or are not charged or collected as laid down by law.

Article 104. Taxes

1. Personal income tax shall aim to reduce inequalities, shall be single and progressive and shall pay due regard to family needs and incomes.
2. Businesses shall essentially be taxed on their real income.
3. The taxation of assets shall contribute to equality between citizens.
4. Consumer taxation shall aim to adapt the structure of consumption to changes in the requirements for economic development and social justice, and shall increase the cost of luxury consumer items.

Article 105. Budget

1. The State Budget shall contain:
   1. A breakdown of the state’s income and expenditure, including that of autonomous funds and departments;
   2. The social security budget.
2. The Budget shall be drawn up in accordance with the major planning options and in the light of legal and contractual obligations.
3. The Budget shall be a single budget and shall set out expenditure in accordance with the organisational and functional classification thereof, in such a way as to preclude the existence of secret appropriations and funds. It may also be structured by programmes.
4. The Budget shall provide for the income needed to cover expenditure, and the law shall define the rules governing the Budget’s execution, the terms and conditions governing the use of public credit, and the criteria for governing such alterations as the Government may make during the Budget’s execution in the organisational headings of each budget programme passed by the Assembly of the Republic, all with a view to the Budget’s full implementation.

Article 106. Drawing up the Budget

1. The Budget Law shall be drawn up, organised, put to the vote and implemented in accordance with the applicable framework law, which shall include the rules governing the drawing up and implementation of the budgets of autonomous funds and departments.
2. The Budget bill shall be presented and put to the vote within such time limits as the law may set, and the law shall lay down the procedures to be adopted when such time limits cannot be met.
3. The Budget bill shall be accompanied by reports on:
   1. A forecast of the evolution of the main macroeconomic indicators that have an influence on the Budget, as well as the evolution of the money supply and the sources thereof;
   2. The grounds for variations in the income and expenditure forecasts compared to the previous Budget;
   3. The public debt, treasury operations and the Treasury accounts;
   4. The situation of autonomous funds and departments;
   5. Transfers of funds to the autonomous regions and local authorities;
   6. Such financial transfers between Portugal and other countries as affect the proposed Budget;
   7. Fiscal benefits and an estimate of the ensuing reduction in income.

Article 107. Scrutiny

The Budget’s execution shall be scrutinised by the Audit Court and the Assembly of the Republic. Following receipt of an opinion to be issued by the Audit Court, the Assembly of the Republic shall consider the General State Accounts, including the social security accounts, and shall put them to the vote.