Lisbon, Oct. 31, 2024 (Lusa) - On Thursday, the Left Bloc's parliamentary leader accused the government of presenting a proposal for a State Budget for 2025 that "traps the country's future" and called on the government to clarify how it will make up for the lack of civil servants.
"The Left Bloc is voting against this budget because it's a budget that traps the country's future," said Fabian Figueiredo at the close of the general debate on the proposed State Budget for 2025 in parliament.
In the Bloc's view, "this is not the budget that the country needs, either now or in the future", adding that the document presented by the PSD/CDS minority government "deepens all the structural problems".
Fabian Figueiredo used the housing crisis as an example, saying that the government wants to "make an irresponsible sale of €900 million of state buildings." In the BE's view, this money should go towards building public housing at controlled costs and student accommodation.
"This irresponsible choice could result in more luxury hotels in Lisbon and Porto, which the country can do without. Unfortunately, this is the consistency of this government, whose political objective seems to be to increase the cost of housing, when it liberalises local accommodation or presents a Mais Habitação programme, which the government knew would put pressure on prices," he criticised.
The BE's parliamentary leader insisted on criticising the government's intention to reintroduce the rule in the civil service of only integrating a civil servant when another leaves and challenged the government to clarify how it will compensate for the lack of human resources in the public sector.
"If there's a shortage of technicians, doctors and nurses at the hospital, who leaves? If there's a shortage of teachers at school, who will leave? If there's a shortage of PSP officers at the police station, who will leave? If there's a shortage of people in the state, in so many essential sectors, how can the rule of one in, one out be applied?" he challenged the government to clarify “where it's going to cut” in the closure intervention.
Fabian Figueiredo accused the government of wanting to "evade the debate" on the Budget "without explaining what it intends to do with the legislative authorisation" it is requesting to amend the Labour and Public Functions Law.
"That's why we're renewing our challenge: all the parties fail this trap in the special session. If it isn't voted down, the country will again have a budget that is 100% the PSD's trademark: unfair and probably unconstitutional," he predicted.
For the BE, the Portuguese economy "doesn't need a cut in corporate income tax" and "an even greater increase in the profits of the banks, big retailers and electricity companies," which have made "record profits." Thus, the BE labels this proposal "irresponsible."
"What we needed was a budget that pointed the way to the economy of the future, to the climate transition, to working fewer hours, to saying jobs and innovation, to saving us from immigration. But no, on the contrary, it deepens structural problems, benefits rentier sectors, and causes permanent cartelisation problems. It's a budget that maintains the structural problems," insisted Fabian Figueiredo.
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