Costa PS geringonça and majority: post-austerity recovery with EU fiscal compliance (Portugal 2015-2024)

Doctrine — stated goals and content

PS-led centre-left governance installed when Costa, after PS placed second in October 2015, negotiated the geringonça confidence-and-supply accords with Bloco de Esquerda, PCP, and PEV — the first time the Portuguese radical left backed a governing PS. Economic school: post-austerity recovery path within EU fiscal rules (SGP / 3% deficit ceiling) — what Costa called 'virar a página da austeridade' while publicly committing to Eurogroup targets. Left-right axis: centre-left (social-democratic PS) with external radical-left parliamentary support 2015-2019, then a pure PS configuration. Core content: (a) reversal of Troika-era public-wage and pension cuts (State Budget 2016 LEI 7-A/2016 phased restoration, completed 2018); (b) minimum wage trajectory from €505 (2015) to €820 (2024) — a 62% cumulative nominal rise, with tripartite Concertação Social accords; (c) IRS reform 2023 (OE2024) creating IRS Jovem with progressive relief for under-35 earners and trimming middle-bracket rates; (d) corporate tax schedule largely unchanged at 21% but surcharges adjusted; (e) 'Mais Habitação' housing package (Lei 56/2023, October 2023): golden-visa programme for real-estate terminated February 2023 and formally ended by the law; forced leasing of vacant dwellings in urban pressure zones (contested); short-term-rental (AL) licence freeze outside low-density interior; rent-cap formula for new leases; (f) right-to-housing constitutional debate intensified 2022-2023 amid price pressure in Lisbon/Porto and 60 000+ Digital Nomad arrivals; (g) NextGenerationEU PRR (Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência) €16.6bn grants + €5.4bn loans, execution chronically behind schedule; (h) SNS reform — creation of Direção Executiva 2022, public-sector hiring push, ongoing capacity strain; (i) TAP recapitalisation and partial-privatisation process (unresolved at Costa's resignation). Popularity: PS won 2015 (32.3% and 86 seats, government formed via geringonça), 2019 (36.3%, 108 seats), and 2022 absolute majority (41.4%, 120 seats) — the first PS majority since 2005. 2019 European elections: PS 33.4% (first place). 2024 European elections held after Costa's resignation: PS lost to AD 31.1% vs 32.1%. Approval eroded through 2023 amid housing, inflation, and the Operação Influencer prosecutorial probe that triggered Costa's resignation 7 November 2023 (he was later not indicted — the PGR acknowledged February 2024 a transcription error in the search warrant). Coherence judgement: doctrinally coherent post-austerity recovery that delivered hospital-to-Brussels fiscal respectability (primary surpluses from 2017, 2023 budget surplus of 1.2% GDP) but under- delivered on the housing and public-services capacity problems that ultimately cost it the 2024 election.