Socialist Party deputies took advantage of the day of absence from work in Parliament to take action in the Tâmega e Sousa region, which encompasses 11 municipalities located in four different districts (Aveiro, Viseu, Porto and Braga).
Divided into five work groups, they went to companies and training entities, passing through Castelo de Paiva, Felgueiras, Cinfães, Marco de Canaveses, Penafiel, Lousada, Resende, Baião, Paços de Ferreira, Amarante and Celorico de Basto. The strategy of bringing the tribunes closer to the country’s different realities follows the call for mobilization that the secretary general himself made in August, traveling along National Road 2, in order to learn about the main territorial difficulties. The plan is to create a mission unit for development contracts in the Tâmega e Sousa Region and responds to the contract signed by CCDR-Norte and the Intermunicipal Communities (CIM) of the Region and the Porto Metropolitan Area (AMP) in 2024, leaving, according to Carneiro, Tâmega e Sousa as an “unprotected area.”
In his intervention with journalists, Carneiro continued what the PS has already been developing since António Costa: in relation to territorial cohesion, it aims to better defend its own investments and combat centralism and the decision-making weight of the Central Administration. In Viana do Castelo, a month ago, socialist president Luís Nobre signed a cohesion contract with 29 parishes. “Territorial contracts serve to identify obstacles and enhance opportunities for economic, social, cultural and institutional development. We want to follow the same governance model at various levels and, at the same time, involving public actors and private partners, from companies to technological training centers and research centers”, described José Luís Carneiro upon arrival at the Higher School of Technology and Management at the Felgueiras hub of the Polytechnic of Porto.
Accompanied by the leader of the Porto Federation, Nuno Araújo, who was leader of Pedro Nuno Santos’ campaign, Carneiro heard complaints about the lack of employability of those who leave with technical training, but subsequently, poorly paid. Of the 11 municipalities, the PS received the most votes in seven in the last municipal elections and there is a strategy that the reunion with the bases, outside the cities, must be via direct contact. As DN reported, one of the territories where Seguro could lose momentum for the Presidential elections is in metropolitan areas and surrounding areas.
After housing was at the center of the municipal campaign, Miguel Pinto Luz, Minister of Infrastructure, will investigate the country’s reality in the EN2 municipalities. Carneiro commented with barbs to the government: “I was pleased to see the Minister of Infrastructure imitating what the PS secretary general did. Now I would like to see the Government, which can even give it another name, imitating a political proposal that seeks to adapt public policies to the needs of the territories.”