The government’s diplomas on IRS Jovem and IRC, the commission of inquiry into the management of Santa Casa da Misericórdia and the hearing of the Attorney General of the Republic will mark the return of parliamentary work in September.
MPs will have around a month to schedule initiatives or hold hearings before parliament devotes itself exclusively to the State Budget for 2025 and the first hearing has already been scheduled: the Attorney General of the Republic, Lucília Gago, will be heard on September 11, at the first meeting of the Constitutional Affairs committee.
At this hearing, Lucília Gago will present the Public Prosecutor’s Office activity report for 2023 and answer questions from MPs. The hearing was scheduled after a controversial interview Lucília Gago gave to RTP at the beginning of July.
The conference of parliamentary leaders and the standing committee – the parliamentary body with the fewest powers that operates during the vacation break – will also meet on the 11th.
Plenary sessions are scheduled to resume on September 18 and, on the same date, the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the management of Santa Casa da Misericórdia, proposed by Chega, IL and BE, will take office.
Parliament will now operate with two committees of inquiry, continuing its work on the case of the twins treated in Portugal with the drug Zolgensma.
Until this Friday, the 6th, the parties have to indicate the questions they want to put in writing to the former Prime Minister, António Costa, in this committee of inquiry.
The PSD/CDS-PP government and the parties are resuming talks this month on the State Budget for 2025, after a first round of meetings in July, but the budget proposal won’t enter parliament until October. There are still no dates for the new meetings.
In the last days of August, Chega excluded itself from the negotiations, and the PS defined its conditions, while the PCP and BE had already announced that they would vote against. The IL, still in July, left “everything open”.
“If the proposals for legislative authorization on corporate income tax and personal income tax that have entered Parliament are approved with the Liberal Initiative and Chega, then it is with these parties that the State Budget must also be approved,” warned the Socialist secretary-general on Sunday.
The two government bills that will not be included in the State Budget for 2025 and had already been criticized by the opposition remained in São Bento: the changes to the Young Personal Income Tax (IRS Jovem), which includes a maximum rate of 15% for all employment income of people up to the age of 35, and the lowering of the Corporate Income Tax (IRC) from the current 21% to 15% by 2027.
As well as the discussion on these two pieces of legislation, the debate on the legislative authorizations for changes to the system that avoids double taxation of income from subsidiaries and the extension of cash VAT were also tabled for this month.
As for the anti-corruption package presented by the executive, the PSD and CDS-PP proposed the creation of an eventual committee in parliament to continue “interaction and dialogue” on this issue, but the executive has not submitted any initiatives to the Assembly so far.
Among the ‘dossiers’ that remained for the return of parliamentary work is the creation of a national compensation circle in the elections to the Assembly of the Republic, with projects by IL, BE, Livre and PAN, which went down to the specialty without a vote.
The same happened with the BE, PCP, Livre and PAN initiatives aimed at restoring the right to 25 days of annual leave or the creation of new leave for parents with children up to the age of eight, proposed by the Blocists, which remained in the parliamentary committee on Labor, Social Security and Inclusion.
The PSD bill approving the statute of the National Council for Medically Assisted Procreation is also awaiting the return of MPs to parliament.
