BRUSSELS, Feb 5 (Reuters) - The European Commission will not reject Portugal’s draft 2016 budget after Lisbon made last minute changes to bring it more in line with EU budget rules, but the draft is still at risk of breaking the rules, the EU executive said on Friday.

“On January 22, Portugal sent the Commission a draft budgetary plan for this year, which... was clearly in breach of the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact,” Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told a news conference.

“Intense political and technical contacts have taken place in recent weeks to ensure that the Portuguese budget plan for the year ahead is complying with these rules and, as a result, the Commission did not have to request a revised draft budgetary plan from the Portuguese authorities,” Dombrovskis said.

However, “the Commission today concluded that the existing draft budgetary is at risk of non-compliance with the rules of the stability and growth pact,” he said. (Reporting By Jan Strupczewski, Gabriela Baczynska and Francesco Guarascio)