Addressing journalists at the Assembly of the Republic, PCP parliamentary leader Paula Santos stated that in recent years, the economic groups dominating the energy and telecommunications sectors “have been making exorbitant profits at the expense of workers, retirees, and families.”
Paula Santos highlighted that “the high cost of energy, electricity, gas, and telecommunications” is placing a “significant burden” on the budgets of families, particularly those with low incomes, and on micro, small, and medium enterprises, arguing that measures must be taken to reduce it.
“What we propose is the restoration of VAT to 6% for all electricity, natural gas, and its extension to bottled and pipeline gas, and VAT at 6% for telecommunications,” she emphasized.
Paula Santos argued that these “essential goods and services must be accessible to all families” and added that, in winter, no one should be deprived of “having their home heated because they cannot afford energy costs.”
Furthermore, the PCP parliamentary leader announced the party’s intention to reintroduce a proposal to set the price of bottled gas at 20 euros, noting that currently, in Portugal, the price is double that of Spain.
“There is no logical justification for this,” she said, noting that in Portugal, bottled gas is the main energy source for more than two million families.
Paula Santos emphasized that these PCP proposals—which the party has previously presented in past legislative sessions, including the last one, but has not succeeded in passing—aim to “address the high costs” of goods “fundamental to the lives of Portuguese families.”
In her statements to journalists, the PCP parliamentary leader also addressed the incident on Tuesday night involving an attack by a far-right group on an actor from the theater company A Barraca in Lisbon, as he was entering a free entrance show honoring Camões.
The deputy condemned the act by “fascist, neo-Nazi groups,” calling it “intolerable” and asserting that “there can be no complacency” in Portugal with “violence and hate speech.”
“We also want to express our solidarity with cultural workers, with the Teatro da Barraca. What is required from our country is, indeed, to ensure respect for and compliance with the rights, freedoms, and guarantees enshrined in the Constitution,” she stated.
When asked about a report in Expresso indicating that the attack on the actor might have been organized by a neo-Nazi group removed from the final version of the National Internal Security Report (RASI), Paula Santos said that, if confirmed, it would be incomprehensible.
“We have not yet heard any justification from the Government regarding this matter. Naturally, when discussing internal security, the risks posed by extremist right-wing fascist groups cannot be ignored. It is naturally a cause for concern,” she said.
