The Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, insisted today that the non-rejection of the Government’s program means that parliament gives the executive “the possibility to start working to implement” this document.
Shortly after PS secretary-general Pedro Nuno Santos, speaking to journalists in parliament, challenged the government to present a motion of confidence, PS MP and former assistant secretary of state to the prime minister António Mendonça Mendes accused Luís Montenegro of looking for excuses not to govern.
“It seems that he doesn’t want to be prime minister, he’s trying to create a climate to go to the elections as soon as possible, by saying that the conditions for implementing the program should be given to him by the PS,” he criticized.
In his response, Montenegro joked that he has even been accused of speaking too little and repeated the idea that he has defended since taking office.
“There is a government that emerged from the choices of the Portuguese in the elections and parliament must decide whether or not to reject the program. Not rejecting it means, whatever the PS vote, that it gives the government the possibility of starting work to implement the program,” he said, during the debate on the program of the XXIV Constitutional Government.
He added: “Do you think I just wanted to take office to say I was prime minister? I wanted to take office to fulfill the government’s program, is that so hard to understand?” he asked.
In the first round of joint requests for clarification, Montenegro answered the six questions at length, although he left a joint ‘message’ for the BE and PCP benches, which criticized the government’s program.
“I understand your frustration, it’s a confession of your incapacity, that you spent six years arm in arm with the PS and the result was that you emptied many of the seats you had in parliament and left the welfare state at the worst moment since April 25,” accused the Prime Minister.
For Chega, parliamentary leader Pedro Pinto considered that the government’s program only brings “empty promises” to the security forces and offered the help of his caucus to immediately provide solutions to respond to the demands of these professionals.
In his response, Montenegro said that it was “very easy to make arguments and write projects that have no financial backing”.
“We’re going to start talks tomorrow so that we can have a solution that will be as quick as possible and that is viable,” he said.
For the BE, José Soeiro questioned one of the measures in the government’s program, a maximum IRS rate for young people up to the age of 35, saying that “more than 80% of young people earn less than a thousand euros and don’t even pay IRS”.
“Your program is not for everyone, everyone, everyone, it’s for the very few who win everything,” he accused.
The Prime Minister said he wanted to “dispel a misconception” and pointed to two concrete examples.
“A young person with a salary of 1,000 euros gross currently pays 1,161 euros in personal income tax, with our measure they will pay 387. A young person earning 1,500 euros gross currently pays 2,847 euros and when the youth IRS is approved they will pay 949 euros,” he said.
For the PCP, parliamentary leader Paula Santos accused the government of wanting to privatize public services and reduce taxes for large companies, considering that “five years is too long” to recover the teachers’ frozen time.
In his answers, Montenegro challenged Mendonça Mendes’ assertion that the macroeconomic scenario in AD’s electoral program is unrealistic and regretted that the PS is now asking the government to solve “in 60 days what it couldn’t solve in 3,050” and took advantage of a question from the vice-chairman of the PSD bench Miguel Guimarães to admit that, in health, “it’s not possible to solve all the problems overnight”.
“The problems will take a long time to solve, some are more urgent, hence the emergency program, but there are structural changes to be made,” he said, assuring that “the anchor” of the system will continue to be the SNS, but with recourse to private individuals and the social sector, as he said already happens on a daily basis.
