A WEEK ago Pedro Passos Coelho, Portugal's centre-right prime minister, faced the unpopular task of cutting public spending by €4 billion ($5 billion) over three years to comply with his country's €78 billion bail-out programme. Then, on April 5th, the constitutional court struck down previously planned cuts in public-sector pay, pensions and benefits. He now has to find cuts worth €5.3 billion to keep the programme on track to end in May 2014. The court's ruling raises doubts over whether that is now possible: in effect, might Portugal need a second bail-out? After three months" deliberation, the court rejected four out of nine budget cuts before it. The 13 judges found that a plan to trim pay and pensions by eliminating one of two extra "bonus" months paid in the summer and at Christmas flouted a constitutional requirement that public- and private-sector workers and pensioners be treated equitably. The court also ruled against cuts in sickness and unemployment benefits made in January, arguing that minimum payments established in law cannot be lowered. Before Portugal can receive the next €2 billion loan instalment, Mr Passos Coelho now has to persuade the European Union and the IMF that he can find the €5.3 billion in cuts: a tall order indeed. A decision on a seven-year extension to the maturity of Portugal's euro loans - an easing of financial terms that Mr Passos Coelho calls decisive - could also be delayed (see Charlemagne). And plans to issue a ten-year government bond, seen as an important step towards regaining access to the markets by September, have been put on hold. António José Seguro, the leader of the opposition Socialists (PS), is crowing. The rescue programme has "failed on every level," he says, bringing the country to "the brink of a social tragedy." Not only is the recession much deeper and unemployment higher than forecast, but the budget deficit has widened from 4.4% of GDP in 2011 to 6.4% in 2012 despite unrelenting austerity. As evidence of progress, the government points to a big fall in the current-account deficit, from 10.4% to 0.3% of GDP over four years, and a sharp reduction in the primary structural budget deficit. Court in the act Mr Passos Coelho wants the constitution to be revised to slim down the state and allow the cuts he has promised. He would probably like to change the clauses that led directly to the court ruling. But the biggest concerns surround the welfare state. The IMF has proposed reducing the range of state-provided health services and increasing small, point-of-delivery charges. Large-scale redundancies seem inevitable among Portugal's 600,000 state workers (12.4% of the workforce). What the IMF calls "excess employment" is concentrated in education and the security forces. Despite entreaties from the government, the president and international lenders, the PS refuses to discuss such reforms, which it sees as an ideological attack. The trouble for Mr Passos Coelho is that the PS is also against any constitutional amendments, depriving his government of the two-thirds majority in parliament that is needed to pass them. The opposition would prefer an early election, enabling a victorious PS to negotiate a new bail-out. And now the court has amplified doubts over the prime minister's ability to diminish the size and cost of the state without a constitutional revision. If Mr Passos Coelho is blocked both in parliament and by the court, then his plans for Portugal will be doomed from the outset.