The measures outlined in the Socialist Party’s electoral program, currently being presented in Lisbon, highlight housing as the “major national challenge” and emphasize the need for the state to act with “courage, scale, and future vision.”
The Socialist Party recognizes that although Portugal has “several rental support instruments in place,” these do not always reach those in need. The party attributes this to eligibility requirements, contract terms, rental values, or, during the AD government, the difficulty in delivering support where it is most needed.
To “ensure a more robust framework of support instruments for access to housing,” the party proposes in its electoral program to “simplify and standardize access to rental support and broaden the scope of current support measures.”
The program states, “Ensuring that all families with a high effort rate, including middle-class families, have access to rent payment support.”
In the housing sector, the party also proposes that part of the dividends from Caixa Geral de Depósitos be allocated to a state current account to finance municipalities in housing construction.
This measure was previously announced by the Socialist Party’s Secretary-General, Pedro Nuno Santos. In the party’s electoral program, it is suggested as one of the “permanent funding instruments for public housing construction, especially targeting the middle class, young people, relocated workers, and higher education students.”
For higher education students, the Socialist Party plans to “progressively reduce undergraduate tuition fees to zero within a decade” and promises to “evaluate the regulation of master’s degree fees where the courses are an obligatory prerequisite for entering a profession.”
