On the first day of the specialized debate on the State Budget proposal for 2026, Miguel Costa Matos stated that the “PS is a responsible party and will fulfill its responsibilities” in the budgetary process by abstaining “on most of the amendment proposals” presented by other parties.
The socialist parliamentarian explained that the PS bench “did not present amendment proposals that jeopardize the budget balance” and, for the same reason, will not support opposition proposals that compromise the surplus.
“We will not give the Government an excuse not to comply with the budget balance. We do this for a very clear reason; because the Government has responsibilities. We left the country growing at 3%, and this Government leaves it growing at 2%. We left the country with much higher salary growth than now. And this Government, which has already spent all the surplus we left, is now responsible for fulfilling what was set in this State Budget”, he stressed.
Miguel Costa Matos further reiterated that the socialists support the budget document “out of an imperative of responsibility,” considering it “better to have some budget, even if a bad one, than to have no budget” and not being able to “execute the last year of the Recovery and Resilience Plan.”
Previously, social-democrat Hugo Carneiro intervened to sarcastically address the amendment proposals presented by the opposition, accusing the parties of proposing numerous infrastructure projects without calculating their costs and highlighting what he described as “quirky proposals,” such as the socialist initiative for the executive to evaluate broadcasting Portuguese soccer league games on RTP International and RTP Africa.
“PS wants to approve football match broadcasts in the budget. Chega wants to approve the reduction of VAT on cowbells. They also join the left on the food VAT issue. Livre is concerned about sleep and believes it is essential to conduct a large national study on the Portuguese’s sleep, adding to the resistance of the Portuguese legal system against authoritarian shock,” he said.
