The meeting is scheduled to start at 3:00 pm and the measures to be approved by the executive are expected to be around two billion euros, according to information released by some media outlets.

Among the measures, according to newspapers, will be the attribution of a check of 100 euros to families to help support the increase in costs with energy and food.

Besides the beneficiaries of the minimum social benefits and the social energy tariff (who this year were given a food basket of 60 euros) additionally, households in middle class income brackets could be covered by this check of 100 euros.

Another measure that could be on the table is the advance to pensioners of part of the increase that was foreseen for next year, through the automatic update of pensions, calculated on the basis of the average annual growth of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) over the last two years and the inflation rate calculated in November this year.

This week, during his official visit to Mozambique for the 5th Luso-Mozambican Summit, the prime minister said the measures would be announced today stating that "strength comes from calm”.

António Costa said that "it is necessary to ensure that both families and companies have conditions to face this situation", stressing that, in relation to companies, only after the Council of Energy Ministers of the European Union scheduled for 9th will it make sense to take measures.

The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said this weekend that the list of measures that the Government will present should be urgent, flexible and aimed at the most needy, but also the middle class.

Marcelo defended a balance, considering that it is necessary to act urgently, but that the measures should be adjusted month by month.

Several European countries have already adopted measures to combat inflation and opposition parties have been pressuring António Costa to come forward with solutions.

These measures- initially announced by the Prime Minister in July during the State of the Nation debate in Parliament will be approved less than a week after the PSD (Portuguese Social Democratic Party) put forward the measures of its social emergency programme, totalling 1.5 billion euros, in the form of a draft resolution.

The amount is higher than initially announced by PSD president Luís Montenegro at the Pontal Festival in Faro (which was one billion euros), a difference justified by the parliamentary leader of the social democrats, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, with the "worsening situation of families and companies" and because the July budget has shown that "there is a very significant additional revenue".

Among the measures defended by the PSD is the reduction of VAT on energy (fuel, electricity and gas) to the minimum rate (6 percent) or the attribution of a food voucher worth 40 euros per month to all pensioners and retired people who have a pension/retirement up to 1,108 euros and to all citizens in active life and earning income up to the third income tax bracket, during the same period.