Lisbon, Sept. 30, 2024 (Lusa) - Portugal's governing centre-right Social Democratic Party (PSD) and its coalition partner the conservative People's Party (CDS-PP) will on Monday begin a series of meetings for their members of parliament, centred on the state budget, to include speeches by almost all the ministers in the current government, including the prime minister, Luís Montenegro.

The theme of the meetings, which are to take place in parliament, is ‘A State Budget to solve people's problems’ with the opening session at 10 a.m. on Monday to feature the two parties' parliamentary leaders, Hugo Soares (PSD) and Paulo Núncio (CDS-PP).

At the closing session, on Tuesday lunchtime, there are to be speeches by the party's leaders: Nuno Melo of the CDS-PP, and then Montenegro as PSD leader.

In between, in five panels over the two days, almost all the government ministers will speak, with the exception of the minister of state and foreign affairs, Paulo Rangel, who is out of the country.

On Monday morning, after the opening session, in a panel on ‘Social Portugal’, the minister of health, Ana Paula Martins, the minister of labour, solidarity and social security, Maria do Rosário Ramalho, and the minister of aAgriculture, José Manuel Fernandes, are to speak.

The next panel, on ‘Sovereign Portugal’, is to feature Rita Alarcão Júdice, minister of justice, Nuno Melo, minister of national defence, and António Leitão Amaro, the cabinet office minister. The minister of internal administration, Margarida Blasco, was scheduled to speak on this panel, but as she is to visit the areas burned by the recent fires, along with the prime minister and Portugal's president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, she is to take part in the event at another time.

In the afternoon, under the theme ‘Portugal on the Right Track’, the minister for infrastructure and housing, Miguel Pinto Luz, the minister for the environment and energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, and the minister for culture, Dalila Rodrigues, are to speak.

Monday's final panel, ‘Portugal Frowing’, will be led by Pedro Reis, minister of the economy, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, minister of state and finance, and Margarida Balseiro Lopes, minister of youth and modernisation.

On Tuesday morning, the final panel will be entitled ‘Portugal Functioning’ and will feature speakers such as the minister of education, science and innovation, the minister for territorial cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, and the minister for parliamentary affairs, Pedro Duarte.

The closing session with the party leaders is scheduled for midday on Tuesday.

These parliamentary sessions are taking place just over a week before the deadline of 10 October for submitting the 2025 budget bill, whose fate is still uncertain as the PSD and CDS-PP have just 80 seats, which is not enough to guarantee its approval.

In practice, only the abstention of the main opposition Socialist Party (PS) or a vote in favour on the part of the far-right Chega party would ensure the passage of the bill.

The governing coalition's parliamentary gatherings are taking place a few days after Friday's first official meeting between the prime minister and the PS secretary-general, Pedro Nuno Santos, to discuss the budget, which ended with apparently distant positions but no break in the negotiation process.

After Friday's meeting ended, the PS leader said that he rejects a state budget with the changes to the IRS Jovem (income tax for people aged up to 25) and IRC (corporate income tax) proposed by the government, or any massaging of these measures.

Shortly afterwards, Montenegro labelled Santos's attitude “radical and inflexible” but promised that this week he would present a counter-proposal to the PS in an “attempt to bring positions closer together.”

Meanwhile, Chega leader André Ventura said that Santos had presented the prime minister with budget proposals that were unacceptable to any centre-right government and that his party would ensure a political impasse was avoided if the PS were sidlineed and the government put together a different budget.

SMA/ARO // ARO.

Lusa