Lisbon, Jan. 14, 2026 (Lusa) - The Common Front has not reached an agreement with the government, stating that it does not accept "agreements that harm workers," and says it will not request a supplementary meeting, despite challenging the government to open "another extraordinary negotiation process."
"We continue to reject agreements that harm workers, that take away their purchasing power, that do not restore what has been cut over the years," said the coordinator of the Common Front, Sebastião Santana, after leaving the meeting with the Secretary of State for Public Administration in Lisbon.
Sebastião Santana indicated that this morning's meeting formally closed the process of the Annual General Negotiation for Public Administration, which is currently underway, and that the Secretary of State conveyed that this was the last meeting.
For the Common Front, the agreement proposed by the Government is "impoverishing" and "falls short of what is necessary," so the federation said it would not sign it.
"We will not ask for further negotiations, nor will we participate in them if they take place," he added.
According to the Common Front coordinator, the Government's proposed agreement presented at this meeting did not bring anything new compared to what had already been reported, providing for increases of 2.15%, with a minimum of €56.58 for this year and an increase in the civil service meal allowance of 15 cents (per day) per year until 2029.
In practice, this means that the remuneration base for the civil service (commonly known as the minimum wage) will rise from the current €878.41 to €934.99 in 2026.
Sebastião Santana also said that he had set the Government a "challenge" to "sit down at the table" with the unions and open "another extraordinary negotiation process with a view to an interim wage increase in the first phase and then respond to the other four priorities" delivered today by the Common Front and included in the federation's list of demands.
"They are not going to wait until September this year to start renegotiating salaries for the following year," he stressed, criticising the way the process was conducted, given that it ends when the State Budget for 2026 is not only "approved, but also enacted and in force".
In addition to the salary issue, Sebastião Santana mentioned that among the Common Front's "priorities" are "the restoration of the public appointment bond," the replacement of the civil servant evaluation system with a system "that does not have the conditions that exist today," the valorisation of careers, and investment in public services.
"We need valued public services, and not what is happening, as we have unfortunately been seeing every day [with] news of public services in serious decline, [as is the case] with the National Health Service," he stressed.
As part of this negotiation process, the Government has already shown itself willing to move forward with an extension of the multi-year agreement on the enhancement of civil servants currently in force, in order to cover the current legislative term, i.e. until 2029, proposing in this case increases of 2.30%, with a minimum of €60.52.
The proposal presented to the civil service unions includes other matters, such as "the remuneration status of managers, the inclusion of other careers, the revision of SIADAP, as well as those provided for in the current agreement: the revision of the allowance and transport allowance scheme, assessment of the impact of the career accelerator and the review of general careers," the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on 17 December.
JMF/ADB // ADB.
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