Lisbon, Oct. 31, 2024 (Lusa) - Portugal's main opposition Socialist Party (PS) on Thursday accused the right-of-centre coalition government of a lack of transparency regarding its proposed state budget for 2025, saying that it does not trust the executive to change legislation relating to the public sector, and that it will not write any blank cheques in the committe stage of the bill.
In the PS's first substantive intervention on the second day of the debate on the budget bill, PS parliamentary leader Alexandra Leitão pointed the finger at a government that she said is caught between "fog and opacity" and accused the government, which lacks a majority in parliament, of a lack of transparency in this process by leaving a series of questions about the budget unanswered.
According to the PS parliamentary leader, the government is announcing "measures that are already underway, but which it has previously criticised" and has no commitment to public services, rather being "in a permanent election campaign" - all of which, she said, is embodied in the budget bill.
Leitão criticised some specific measures in the budget, such as what she said was vague legislative authorisation - "a real blank cheque" - on changes to the rules for public employees.
On the subject of this legislative authorisation, Joana Mortágua of the Left Bloc (BE) asked the Leitão if she trusts the government to make this legislation or, if not, if she "will add her votes to those of the BE" in rejecting it.
"The answer is no, we don't," said Leitão. "We don't trust it and that's why we'll be here" in the committee session.
On behalf of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the largest of the two parties in the governing coalition, António Rodrigues responded to the criticism of a lack of opacity by saying that he was "astonished because the country had come from a space of darkness" under a PS government that had a majority in parliament. He accused the opposition party of a lack of responsibility, a lack of ability to analyse and a lack of solidarity.
In her reply, Leitão began by asking Rodrigues whether, when he spoke of the legacy the PS had left behind, he was referring to "the result of the surplus" that now allows problems to be solved.
Leitão said that accusations of a lack of solidarity were curious from "a government that is totally dependent on the opposition" to get its budget bill through, and recalled that the PS had made a commitment to the Portuguese to allow the budget to pass by its members of parliament abstaining in the final vote.
"One thing is responsibility towards the country, another thing is blank cheques, and the PS won't have those," she said.
JF/ARO // ARO.
Lusa
