The prime minister will again answer questions from deputies in parliament, but with a limited number of times in which the parties can divide their intervention time, a maximum of seven for PSD and PS.
According to the text agreed between PS and PSD for the revision of the regulations, to which Lusa had access, there will also be some periods when biweekly debates will not take place: in the month of presentation of the government program (once per legislature), in the month of the state of the nation debate (usually in July), during the period when the proposed state budget bill takes place (between mid-October and the end of November), as well as in the two weeks following the discussion of motions of confidence or censure.
The return of fortnightly debates with the Prime Minister is the main change that has led to a new revision of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the Republic, begun two years after the PS and PSD agreed to end the fortnightly debates, with the current models in place simply require the prime minister to appear in plenary every two months for general policy debates.
According to the text to be discussed in the working group reviewing the Rules – with the aim of entering into force in September – the format of bi-weekly debates will return, in a similar model to that which existed until July 2020, but with a change in how parties can allocate their global speaking and rebuttal time, which has been freely managed until now.
“Parliamentary groups that have ten or more minutes of global debate time can divide their time into seven interventions,” the text reads, in a provision that will apply to PS and PSD in the roster provided for the current legislature.
The other parliamentary groups with less than ten minutes of debate time in total can divide their time into five interventions.
“The only deputies representing a party can divide their time between two interventions”, refers to the text.
Any intervention is immediately followed by the Prime Minister’s response, who has the same amount of time to respond.
As before 2020, the debates with the Prime Minister will have two alternating formats – one initiated by the Head of Government and another by the parties – returning to just one round (instead of the current two) and ranging between 109 and 99 minutes (against the current 180).
“In the first, the debate is opened by an initial intervention of the Prime Minister, for a period of not more than ten minutes, followed by the questioning phase of the deputies developed in one turn; in the second, the debate begins with the question phase of the deputies developed in one turn,” the text says.
At the start of the current legislature, all banks proposed changes to the current model of debates, including, with the exception of the PS and PCP, the return of bi-weekly general policy talks with the Prime Minister ending in 2020 by agreement between the PS and PSD (then led by Rui Rio).
In its original proposal, the PS, which has an absolute majority in parliament, proposed to debate monthly with the Prime Minister (alternating, every two weeks, with a different member of the government) and use the time for each party continuously, without replicas.
However, at the end of December and despite frontal opposition from the PSD, the Socialists have already admitted to reformulating their proposal to try and reach a consensus, which has now been reached with the Social Democrats.
The working group on the revision of the Rules of Procedure will meet on Thursday to begin preliminary discussion and vote on the replacement text.
Source: DN
