The general secretary of the PCP, Paulo Raimundo, this Sunday promised his party’s “firm fight” against the State Budget proposal for 2026, accusing PSD, CDS-PP, Chega, Liberal Initiative and PS of not giving a damn about the country.
“In our party, there are no performances here, there are no theater coups, there are no maneuvers, here we don’t hesitate, here we don’t give anyone in right-wing politics any trouble, wherever they come from. This budget deserves a firm fight and we won’t miss out on that fight”, he assured.
At a rally in Cabeção, in the municipality of Mora, district of Évora, this Sunday afternoon, the leader of the communists countered that, on the other parties’ side, this is not the position in relation to the State Budget proposal for 2026 (OE2026) presented by the Government, which will be debated in parliament, between Monday and Tuesday.
Considering that the country is “bound by wires”, Paulo Raimundo argued that “PSD, CDS, Chega, Liberal Initiative and also the Socialist Party what they reveal around the discussion of this budget is that they are fooling around and don’t give a damn about the country”.
“They don’t care about the lives of the majority, they don’t care about everything except guaranteeing the interests of large economic groups”, he continued.
OE2026 is a “piece of a policy at the service of economic groups and orders from Brussels”, while Portugal has “more than two million poor people, 300 thousand children in this situation” and “closed emergencies that the Government now wants to close once and for all”.
On this subject, the communist leader argued that “the solution is not to concentrate emergencies”, but precisely the opposite: “The solution is to keep all emergency departments open”.
“There’s a shortage of doctors? Hire doctors. There’s a shortage of nurses? Hire nurses. People can’t continue to see their children being born in ambulances, as happens in the municipality of Moita, where this year alone volunteer firefighters have already delivered 16 babies in ambulances”, he exemplified.
This is “a risk for firefighters, a risk for babies and, above all, a risk for mothers”, argued Paulo Raimundo, who also alluded to other problems that he said existed, such as the lack of teachers, housing, increased cash costs and low pensions.
“The country does not have unlimited resources”, he agreed, but, for the secretary general of the PCP, “if the lives of the majority are increasingly limited by difficulties, it is because the limited resources that the country has are being diverted, completely diverted, to those who think that there are never limits to the concentration of their power and profits”.
“Don’t talk about there being no money. There is money, the problem is the options. Instead of giving 1,800 million euros in tax benefits in the State Budget, increase reforms, increase pensions, because three million people are worth much more than 19 economic groups, which is where [vão] stop tax benefits”, he argued.
Parliament will debate in plenary, between Monday and Tuesday, the Government’s proposal for OE2026, for more than ten hours, culminating in the approval of the document in general, already guaranteed by the abstention of the PS.