The BE group wrote to the President of the Assembly of the Republic to expedite a visit by the President of the European Central Bank (ECB) to parliament to discuss the housing situation.
The announcement was made this afternoon in Coimbra by Mariana Mortágua, at the first meeting after the election as National Coordinator of the party, dedicated to the housing issue in Portugal, accusing the government of subservience to the ECB, led by Christine Lagarde.
“Because if the government does not represent the Portuguese people at the ECB, why should the President come to Portugal to speak to the representatives of the people in the Assembly of the Republic to find out what it is doing to these people, who cannot stand are against another surge in interest,” he stressed.
For Mariana Mortágua, “the same submissiveness that the government has towards the ECB also applies towards the banks, which have benefited from all this policy and are the main beneficiaries of the interest rate rise”.
At the first summer meeting dedicated to housing, the national coordinator of BE took the view that the interest rate hike decided by the ECB aims to impoverish citizens.
The blockade deputy also accused the government of failing in housing measures, especially in providing affordable housing, and of abandoning an entire generation, “who have no home and are unable to find a home” .
“We are a country of people who work, but whose salary is not enough to pay a rent or a bank payment,” emphasizes Mariana Mortágua.
The BE leader stressed that the package of “advertisements” for the Mais Habitação program launched by the government only served to “divert attention from the essential”, being “a package of tax benefits for the same real estate interests that have already benefited before with the housing crisis”.
“And the example of these empty measures of Mais Habitação is the use of two measures that mean nothing: compulsory rent and local accommodation,” said the national coordinator of BE, emphasizing that the executive António Costa never wanted to touch these two issues and that what remained for the history of the program so far were the “systematic withdrawals of the PS and the government”.
“The local accommodation that would be reimbursed, after all it will be half of what it would be, the licenses that were already excessive will continue to be excessive because there is no mechanism to reduce the licenses and the ‘golden’ visas that would end, not only is it not over, because after all, it won’t end for everyone, because venture capital funds continue to exist,” he underlined.
The block leader defended that 25% of all new construction should be for controlled cost housing, local accommodation regulations, with restrictions in city centers and a moratorium on all new tourist development.
“Enough hotels, we want houses to live in,” he stressed.
Mariana Mortágua also proposed maximum limits on the rent, according to a series of criteria, “so that people can pay rent with their salary”, the fight against real estate speculation and the ending of tax incentives for real estate funds and non-ordinary residents, “which the State annually costs a billion euros in tax benefits”.
Source: DN
