“What surprises me is the constant need [of the PS] to always find ways to align with the Government’s core options. That’s what surprises me, and I think the PS shouldn’t feel the need to do that,” said Paulo Raimundo.
The PCP’s general secretary made these remarks to journalists during a CDU rally in Oeiras after being asked about his surprise at the PS’s general secretary admitting there is “not a great distance” between the party and the Government on the foreigners’ law.
Paulo Raimundo opined that the PS, by aligning with a Government, creates a “negative aspect: it frees Chega from taking responsibility.”
However, the PCP’s general secretary refrained from commenting specifically on a potential agreement between the PS and the PSD regarding the foreigners’ law, emphasizing that these are “decisions of other” parties, and it involves “arrangements around specific aspects.”
“It’s the arrangement around the immigrants’ law, the arrangement around the labor package, and the arrangement around the State Budget we’ve already discussed. These are different arrangements, but where everyone — particularly the PS and Chega — seems to continue in that jostling to see who is the ideal partner for the Government,” he stated, stressing that those who “align with the Government” will have to “take responsibility.”
When questioned about how he views the PS’s association with a law he previously considered having reactionary contours, Paulo Raimundo distinguished between the foreigners’ law approved in July at the Assembly of the Republic and struck down by the Constitutional Court, which he believed had “reactionary contours,” and the one currently being drafted.
“I don’t know the text of the new [law], honestly, I don’t know it. So, please don’t take it the wrong way, but I won’t comment on the text of the supposedly new law because I don’t know it,” he said.
PS’s general secretary, José Luís Carneiro, announced today that the party will propose amendments to the new foreigners’ law to improve it, admitting that there is “not a great distance” regarding the Government’s proposal, but no dialogue occurred.
The Assembly of the Republic will reconsider this Tuesday, in plenary, generally, in detail, and in final global voting, the new proposed amendments to the foreigners’ law, after this bill was struck down by the Constitutional Court.
