The secretary general of the PS considered this Thursday, February 19, “a mistake” that the prime minister did not accept his proposal to extend the calamity situation due to bad weather nor to extend it to municipalities not covered.
At the entrance to the first session of a round that he will take, as a re-candidate for the leadership of the PS, across the country to listen to civil society and PS activists, José Luís Carneiro was asked by journalists about this afternoon’s fortnightly debate.
“In the first place, [Luís Montenegro] did not respond affirmatively to a proposal I made that was very useful to Portuguese municipalities, namely extending the duration of the calamity and, on the other hand, including several municipalities that needed to be included in the disaster declaration for the purposes of support and public investment”, he said.
For the socialist leader, “it is a mistake that the Government did not accept this proposal”.
“Today we were contacted by the Prime Minister’s office, at the end of the day, for a meeting next Wednesday. I must say that we had not yet checked whether it was possible or not, but I have already seen that it was reported that we had been summoned. I would like the Government not to do to the PS what it also did to the UGT, which is to schedule the meetings and without us confirming our presence, announce our presence”, he criticized.
According to Carneiro, “It is good that people have, on the one hand, respect for the dialogue that must exist from an institutional point of view”.
“I am available for this to happen, but it cannot be done with a model of imposition on the part of the Government”, he warned.
The government will meet on Wednesday with all political parties with parliamentary seats to discuss the “Portugal Transformation, Recovery and Resilience” (PTRR) program, the general lines of which will be approved on Friday by the Council of Ministers.
The meetings will be held at the Prime Minister’s official residence and will begin at 10am, with JPP, and continue throughout the day with the parties in ascending order of representation in the Assembly of the Republic, with the last scheduled for 5pm, with Chega, a source from Luís Montenegro’s office told Lusa.
The Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, today rejected the challenge of the PS leader, José Luís Carneiro, to extend the calamity situation due to bad weather, guaranteeing that the recovery mechanisms will be for the entire territory.
PS gives the green light to 100% lay-off
The socialist leader also announced his agreement with the parliamentary assessment of Livre, PCP and BE so that the lay-off in response to bad weather, 100% will be paid, a measure that will be approved because Chega will also vote in favor.
“The proposal that brings the parties to our left [Livre, PCP e BE] Naturally, the PS can only agree to the extent that the PS was the first party, in the proposals it sent to the Prime Minister and which it also presented this week, to defend that the ‘lay-off’ should be assumed in its entirety by the State”, he said.
The PS secretary general was asked about the parliamentary assessment, presented by Livre, PCP and BE, of the Government decree that creates the simplified ‘lay-off’ regime after the storm that hit the country, proposing that the salary of workers covered by this instrument be paid at 100% and not at two thirds, as defined.
“We were actually the first party that came to defend the ‘lay-off’ at 100%, as had actually happened during the pandemic. We reiterated again in the proposals I presented that the ‘lay-off’ should be ensured by the State, namely the percentage of 33% that is not ensured in what is the regular application of the law”, he emphasized.
The proposal from Livre, PCP and BE should be made viable as, on Wednesday, Chega’s president, André Ventura, had already announced that his party would approve this parliamentary assessment.
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