Livre today challenged the PS “not to miss the opportunity to be more ambitious” on housing after the President’s veto, stressing that the arguments used by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa were defended by the party.
In a statement reacting to today’s veto of the housing law approved in parliament on July 19 with only the PS voting in favor, the party of the single MP Rui Tavares defended this as “an opportunity for more ambition in housing”.
“We urge the government and its absolute majority in Parliament not to miss this opportunity to be more ambitious,” he challenged.
This morning, after this decision was made known, the PS announced that it would confirm the diploma in the Assembly of the Republic, i.e. it would not make any changes to it.
Contrary to “what practically everyone on the right had predicted”, Livre points out, “the President of the Republic’s arguments were not legal and constitutional and did not lead to a request for a successive review being sent to the Constitutional Court, which means that property rights are not being harmed”,
According to the party, the arguments used by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in the political veto are “arguments that were actually written and defended by Livre”.
“In other words, the main reason for this political veto is that the ordinance does not take sufficiently ambitious steps to respond to the scale of the housing crisis we are facing,” he emphasized.
Emphasizing that the most ambitious proposals for change that they put forward were not accepted in Mais Habitação, Livre said that “public housing policies are needed to increase the public housing stock in Portugal to 10%” and to “recover the possibility of building functional homes for certain professions with placement and mobility difficulties, such as teachers and health or security professionals”.
“The government now has a great opportunity to do so. It has more reasons than just the political veto to do so,” he said.
By investing 0.5% of GDP in housing every year for ten years, according to Rui Tavares’ party, it is possible to “make up for the lack of public investment that the President of the Republic identified in his veto”.
The President of the Republic today vetoed the decree that brought together the main changes to housing legislation – with changes to rents, licensing and local accommodation – approved on July 19 in parliament by the PS, which has already announced that it will confirm it at the start of the next legislative session.
In the message accompanying the return of the diploma to parliament, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa expressed a “serene negative judgment” on the measures and criticized the lack of party consensus.
“It’s not easy to see where the promised supply of housing will come from effectively and quickly,” he said, adding that “it’s not credible enough” in terms of short-term implementation or mobilization.