Commission and the ECB, the Council reviewed the general economic policy conditions attached to the financial assistance. The amendments included new measures for the adjustment programme that were afterwards included in nine (!) updated versions of the MoU. Each new update had to be signed by the Commission and the Portuguese authorities to allow further disbursements of loan instalments granted under the EFSM and the EFSF. XXXV 3. The legal nature of the MoU In the first opportunity it had to review the constitutionality of financial austerity measures adopted after the bailout, the Portuguese Constitutional Court had no doubts about the binding legal nature of the memoranda: ‘The (adjustment) programme determines the adoption of some previous actions by the Portuguese authorities including several legal instruments that were approved, on the one side, by the Portuguese Government and, on the other, by the Executive Council of the IMF, as well as by the Portuguese Government and the European Commission (for the EU) and by the ECB. Thus, the Portuguese Government and the IMF approved the (TMU) and the (MEFP) that establish the conditions of the IMF financial assistance to Portugal. Furthermore, between the Portuguese government and the EU (the MoU) was signed. (The MoU) was adopted according to Council Regulation (UE) 407/2011, of 11 May 2010, that establishes the EFSM, and in particular its article 3 (5) that establishes the general conditions of economic policy included in the Council Implementing Decision 2011/344/UE, on granting Union financial assistance to Portugal. These memoranda are binding to the Portuguese State because they are based in legal instruments (…) of international law and EU law that are incorporated through Article 8 (2) of the (Portuguese) Constitution. The (MEFP) and the (TMU) are based in Article V, Section 3, of the Agreement of the IMF , and the (MoU) is ultimately based in article 122 (2) TFEU. Such documents impose the adoption by the Portuguese State of the measures contained therein as a condition of the phased fulfilment of the loan agreements (…). From the wording of the memoranda, as well as from the Council of Ministers Resolution 8/2011, of 5 May 2011 [published in the Diário da República (Official Journal), II Série, from 17 May 2011], is clear that as a consequence of the (bailout program), Portugal must adopt during a three year period several measures and legal acts, some having a structural nature, connected with public finances, financial stability and competitiveness.’XXXVI Except where otherwise noted content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons 2.5 Italy License E -116