The government’s first hundred days were marked by many announcements, the decision on the location of the future airport and an agreement with part of the teachers’ unions, along with many changes in top positions.
On Wednesday, July 10, the PSD/CDS-PP government led by Luís Montenegro completes one hundred days since it took office at the Palácio de Ajuda on April 2, and entered full office on the 12th of the same month.
Since then, several “packages” and “agendas” have been announced – in areas ranging from housing to corruption, immigration, health, public administration and the economy – but not all of them have yet been translated into legislative initiatives, which has led to criticism from the opposition for a lack of implementation and timing.
The first decision of the XXIV Constitutional Government was admittedly symbolic: the change to the official logo used in the executive’s communication, restoring elements such as the armillary sphere with shield, quinas and castles, which had been eliminated in the previous change.
In the following weeks, the government approved decree-laws aimed at beneficiaries of the Solidarity Supplement for the Elderly – who will now have a 100% co-payment for medicines, their monthly benefit will be increased by 50 euros and their children’s income will be eliminated as an exclusion factor – and, on May 14, announced the first decision that it said had been articulated with the main opposition party, the PS: to build Lisbon’s future international airport in Alcochete, which will be named after the poet Luís de Camões.
Since then, several packages of measures have been presented and approved by the government in the Council of Ministers, such as “Tens futuro em Portugal” (You have a future in Portugal), in the first thematic and decentralized Council of Ministers (in Braga) dedicated to young people, “Construir Portugal” (on housing), the “Plano de Emergência e Transformação na Saúde” (Health Emergency and Transformation Plan), the “Government Action Plan for Migration”, the “Plan +Aulas +Successo” (to prevent students from missing classes for long periods in the next school year), the “Anti-Corruption Agenda”, the first phase of the public administration reform and a set of 60 measures “to accelerate” the economy, including the promised 4-point cut in corporate income tax over the course of the legislature.
The corruption package, for example, of the 20 measures presented has not yet resulted in any decree or bill, in a discussion that will have to go through an eventual parliamentary committee proposed by PSD and CDS-PP.
It has been mainly in the areas of taxation, housing and young people that the government has tried to legislate in these three months and, after its proposal to lower the personal income tax (IRS) was altered by parliament (a replacement text was approved with PSD and CDS-PP voting against), the executive has opted to present legislative authorizations in cases where it cannot decide by decree.
Of the eight bills that the government submitted to Parliament by Friday, three were in the form of authorizations with the aim of allowing the executive to legislate on IMT and IMI exemptions for young people, repeal the extraordinary contribution on local accommodation (these two have already been approved) and change the IRS for young people to a maximum rate of 15%.
On May 21, the government reached an agreement with seven teachers’ unions for the reinstatement of frozen service time and, at the beginning of June, with the main union for judicial employees. Negotiations with the security forces could be in jeopardy, however, after the Prime Minister said he was unwilling to increase the amount of the agreement already proposed (300 euros per month).
These first hundred days have also been marked by replacements in some top public administration positions, with the resignations of the executive director of the National Health Service Fernando Araújo (replaced by Lieutenant Colonel António Gandra d’Almeida) and the president of the Social Security Institute Ana Vasques, or the resignations of the provider of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia Ana Jorge, the national director of the PSP José Barros Correia or the board of the Agency for Administrative Modernization.
The Prime Minister rejected the idea of “a purge with partisan criteria” and responded to the opposition’s criticism with the “reams of resignations” in the previous Socialist executive.
In these hundred days of the XXIV Constitutional Government, the Secretary of State for Mobility, Cristina Dias, has been targeted by the opposition for having received compensation to leave CP and then join a regulatory body.