Portugal’s opposition Socialist party will only take a stand on the centre-right government’s budget proposal for 2013 once it is made public, MP Miguel Laranjeiro said.

During a news conference last night, Laranjeiro declined to speculate on whether the Socialists would again abstain again in the parliamentary budget vote as they did last year.

He told a news conference that the government’s budget proposal was still a “blank page” and that the opposition party would only have “an opinion” when it was presented to the legislature in which the coalition executive led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho holds a majority of seats.

The government must present its budget proposal by 15 October.

Laranjeiro warned that the Socialists would not give the government carte blanche to do as it pleases, recalling that the executive had “almost always” turned or voted down “hundreds” of their proposals.