Lisbon, Feb. 5, 2025 (Lusa) - Portugal's prime minister, Luís Montenegro of the centre-right Social Democratic Party (PSD), on Wednesday said that he is considering the idea of introducing changes to the Social Security system to ensure the sustainability of state pensions, but that a decision will only be made if he is elected for a second parliamentary term.
In response to the Communist Party leader, Paulo Raimundo, in the fortnightly debate in parliament, Montenegro explained that, in relation to the current pension system, "it is the purpose of this government to study the system in this legislature and possibly propose changes for another legislature in relation to its sustainability."
Montenegro, faced with Raimundo's accusations that the government wants to tamper with access to early retirement, said that this was not serious and was unfounded, and that this was not the intention "at any time."
The prime minister also said that this change, if it happens, would only be made after fresh legislative elections and after the government communicates this intention to the country and sees its legitimacy renewed at the ballot box.
"If we have any ideas to change, we'll put them to the test of the people," Montenegro told the leader of the main opposition Socialist Party (PS), Pedro Nuno Santos, who was protesting during the prime minister's response. "We don't do it behind the backs of the people, Mr Poirot. You're upset because the government isn't going to do anything in this legislature."
While responding to Raimundo, the prime minister spent part of his time addressing the PS benches, pointing out that it was that party, in government until April of last year, that had left its successor the Green Paper on Social Security Sustainability, which he said advocates "exactly what the PS accuses [the government] of wanting" to do.
Montenegro also said that the government will now carry out an "in-depth analysis" in the form of a working group of the study on the sustainability of Social Security left by the previous government, adding that, if any measures need to be taken to strengthen the Social Security system, the government will "have the courage to tell the country up front and ask the country what the answer is."
Raimundo had questioned the prime minister, as he had done in the previous fortnightly debate, about the government's intentions, particularly regarding access to early retirement, and accused the right-of-centre coalition government led by Montenegro of launching an "attack on workers' rights" as well as on social security, with new labour laws.
"The government want more hours and more working time, they want even more precariousness and they want young people to work until the end, until the last days of their lives," he alleged.
Raimundo also said that the country's young people and workers "will not accept privatisation or the assault on Social Security" and argued that not only does the system not have any sustainability problems, but that it is its "healthy funds that feed the gluttony of economic groups."
After the prime minister had run out of time to reply, the PCP leader asked Montenegro - having already done so in his previous intervention, without receiving an answer - about the reasons why gas cylinders costs twice as much in Portugal as they do in Spain.
The PCP leader also addressed the conflict in Gaza, urging the government to recognise the state of Palestine and "free the country from having its hands stained with the blood" of the Palestinian people.
The minister of labour, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, assured members that the government would not touch "any acquired rights" in terms of pensions, saying that there would be no new restrictions on early retirement, and ruling out anticipating future measures.
Speaking to the CNN Portugal news channel last Thursday, the minister of finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, said that the government would not make "any structural changes" to Social Security in the current parliament.
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