Lisbon, July 19, 2024 (Lusa) - Livre spokesman Rui Tavares said on Friday that the government has shown a ‘diametrically opposed’ vision to that of his party on budgetary matters and that Livre will only support it if the government presents a ‘truly social and ecological’ programme.
‘Our visions are diametrically opposed, unless the government abandons its budget, which is a more liberal budget, supporting the most powerful and wealthiest sectors of society, for a programme that is truly social and ecological, we have a very wide distance, a very wide river separating us,’ said Rui Tavares.
The Livre spokesman was speaking to journalists at the prime minister's official residence in São Bento, after a meeting on the budget with the ministers of finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, of the presidency, António Leitão Amaro, and of parliamentary affairs, Pedro Duarte.
For the Livre leader, the government has to convert to the idea that ‘this budget has to be done by several hands’ and not follow the discourse that ‘the government has been making of “it's either like this, or it's twelfths, or it's early elections”’.
‘It's worth the government (...) realising that it's going to have to discuss the budget much more openly in parliament than what it's announcing, at least at the moment. That conversion hasn't come yet,’ he added.
Rui Tavares pointed out that the government doesn't have a parliamentary majority to approve the next budget and that, despite the fact that there aren't enough Livre MPs to form a majority, the party has ‘intentions of presenting a counter-budgetary proposal’ because it believes that the ‘democratic debate around budgetary matters in our country can change’.
The Livre MP defended the need for a ‘commitment to fairness and investment’ in relation to the budget surplus and criticised the government for using the budgetary slack ‘to benefit those who are already benefiting the most’.
This surplus should be used, for example, to bring forward the convergence between the minimum wage and the solidarity supplement for the elderly to 2026 and to raise the minimum wage to ‘at least 80%’ of what it is in Spain.
‘We're going to prioritise the use of this money to really help the most fragile, those who have lived through this economic and social crisis and who are still suffering a lot in our country, because that, in our opinion, is what truly induces economic growth from the bottom up and not from the top down,’ he added.
Rui Tavares criticised the government's intention to benefit young people ‘who have higher salaries’ by lowering income tax, reiterating the proposal to implement a ‘social inheritance’ system, which could ‘help people make big, important choices for their lives’.
At this meeting with the government, Livre also recalled the earmarking of part of the stamp duty revenue for the emergency housing fund - a Livre measure included in the current state budget - stating that ‘’€50 million have already been earmarked and are not being used‘’.
Today, the government is meeting with parliamentary parties about the 2025 budget.
It was initially planned that the prime minister would attend these meetings. However, for health reasons, Luís Montenegro has cancelled all political events until Sunday.
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