Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva has officially enacted Portugal's state budget for 2013, according to the Portuguese Parliament website on Monday.

The budget, which is to take effect on Tuesday, was ratified by the president on Friday. He is expected to offer some explanation surrounding his decision to endorse the controversial budget, which promises wage cuts and huge increase in taxes, in a New Year message to be broadcast on Tuesday.

According to Vice Chairman of the Center-right coalition PSD party Teresa Leal Coelho, the ratification is a "huge comfort to the government which recognizes it as a difficult budget" and the "institutional consensus" made the president's decision "a validation of the Budget Act."

However, quite a number of union leaders and opposition party members have called the 2013 Budget Act "unconstitutional."

Left Bloc Parliamentary leader Pedro Filipe Soares said Monday that the budget was "not a decision that serves the interests of the country neither does it respect the oath that was made by the government at the time of its inauguration."

"If he had doubts about the constitutionality of this budget or some of its points, the president should have taken a stronger stance and send it directly to preventive control courageously defending what he swore to uphold," Filipe Soares said.

Communist Party leader Jose Lourenco said that the enactment of the budget was "inconceivable" and that Cavaco Silva had "failed to fulfil his oath in enforcing the Constitution."

"The law is very serious for this country, and will lead to the deterioration of living conditions of millions of Portuguese," he added.