The Socialist Party believes that the Assembly of the Republic also has a role to play in this matter and cannot shirk its duty to scrutinize government action, particularly when it concerns an unprecedented investment in a sovereign area such as National Defense, according to a request submitted by the socialists.
In the text addressed to the chairman of the parliamentary committee on National Defense, Chega deputy Pedro Pessanha, the PS bench recalls that on the previous day, March 3, Defense Minister Nuno Melo announced that the Government will create an “autonomous structure” to implement the European SAFE loans (which amount to about five billion euros in the Portuguese case) and report the execution of the contracts to supervision and other public oversight bodies.
However, the socialists consider that this scale of investment requires “transparency and enhanced, systematic, and technically informed monitoring by the Assembly of the Republic, which should closely and accurately follow the objectives and goals to be achieved, as well as the ongoing or planned investments for the three branches in the areas of equipment, infrastructure, and human resources, and the impacts on the national defense industries and the Portuguese economy as a whole.”
For the PS bench, “it will be useful and convenient to establish, within the scope of the National Defense Commission, a Subcommittee dedicated to this topic,” to ensure that the parliament “has the appropriate means to fully exercise its supervisory function over government action.”
On March 3, the National Defense Minister announced that the Portuguese application for the European SAFE loans includes the acquisition of frigates, the recovery of the Arsenal do Alfeite, and the production of armored vehicles, ammunition, satellites, and drones in Portugal.
At the end of November, the Council of Ministers approved the formal application of Portugal to the European defense loan program SAFE, worth 5.8 billion euros.
Following the initial application, “now begins a process that is contract signing until the end of February, when the European Commission will then confirm exactly what will happen,” explained Nuno Melo.
