Luís Montenegro responded to an intervention by the interim parliamentary leader of the PS, Pedro Delgado Alves, during the first of two days of debate on the Government Program in the Assembly of the Republic.
The executive leader emphasized that, by decision of the Portuguese in the last elections, the Government should be open to dialogue with all parties represented in parliament.
However, according to Luís Montenegro, “it is true that the PS, with the responsibilities it has based on its trajectory over the last 51 years of democracy and what it projects for the future, will have a responsibility that is anticipated to be different compared to other parties.”
“But this depends more on the PS than on the Government,” he concluded, before delivering a message to the PS bench.
According to the Prime Minister, in the current legislature, the PS will face “a historical challenge before itself.”
“Perhaps it is the first time that the PS, in opposition, can offer Portugal a demonstration of true and genuine willingness to collaborate with the Government. What has happened over the last few years is precisely the opposite: The PS is always ready to receive collaboration when the PSD is in opposition, but has never been ready to do the same, with the same significance and reach, in the opposite direction,” he maintained.
Earlier, Pedro Delgado Alves had demanded “greater clarity” from the Government on who is the privileged interlocutor in dialogue with different oppositions, invoking the role of the PS as a founder of the democratic regime and, in a reference to Chega, noting the existence of a party that seeks to establish a “new Republic.”
He also warned that the Government, by including opposition measures in its program, cannot view them as a manifestation of dialogue, since, in his perspective, it constitutes “unilateral dialogue.”
Pedro Delgado Alves also criticized the executive for having included in its program measures that were not in the AD Electoral Program — PSD/CDS coalition, citing as examples the revisions of labor laws and the National Health Service bases, or the concession of railway lines.
“Indeed, the Government Program is not an integral copy of the AD Electoral Program. It contains some implementations of the principles underpinning the Electoral Program,” he added.
Following the exchanges between Pedro Delgado Alves and Luís Montenegro, the president of Chega seized the opportunity to attack the PS, asserting that the socialists had no concerns about measures not included in the previous Government’s program “when they joined the PSD to unfreeze politicians’ salaries.”
“The PS is not concerned with saving regime institutions, but rather with defending their positions in institutions,” accused André Ventura.
