BE wanted to “make a drawing this Saturday to see if the government understands” that essential goods are more expensive, with shopping carts becoming increasingly empty, and defended the rise in wages and pensions.
The party this Saturday organized actions in various parts of the country under the motto “fight inflation”, including one in Lisbon, next to a Pingo Doce supermarket, in which the coordinator, Catarina Martins, participated.
Three shopping carts were placed in front of the store to represent what was on sale in 2020 (the fullest shopping cart), in 2021 (slightly emptier) and this year (still emptier). Behind these carts a banner that reads “too much is too much”; “tax abuse of profits, control prices, raise wages”.
The leader of the Bloco de Esquerda distributed pamphlets in the form of a newspaper and spoke to some people who were sometimes preparing to enter the store, sometimes already with shopping bags in hand, and heard some testimonies who realized that the prices of the items were “higher and higher” and some goods are not even brought home anymore because “they are still expensive even on sale”.
“We’ve heard the government say it can’t raise salaries and pensions because of the inflation risk, so we decided to draw a picture to see if the government sees this. Wages and pensions have not increased,” said Catarina Martins.
The Bloco’s coordinator pointed out that “there is less and less in the supermarket cart, making it more and more difficult to get to the end of the month”.
“And we hope this draft will serve to explain that too much is too much. It really is time to raise salaries, raise pensions, impose price controls and tax excessive profits,” he defended, as “what is not credible is to say inflation rises if we increase salaries and pensions, because as everyone who lives on his salary knows about his pension, prices have gone up, salaries and pensions have not.”
Catarina Martins defended that “action is needed now, before the state budget for 2023”, claiming that “the month of October starting now is the month of all increases, it is the month when so many people will have increases in favor of the house. , is the month in which the energy price rises”.
And he warned that “the danger is not to increase salaries and pensions and not to control prices”, indicating that this has already been done during the pandemic.
“To prevent masks from being sold at absurd prices, there was a maximum that could be charged. We’ve done it before, we can do it, and there are other countries studying baskets with maximum prices,” he said.
The BE leader also pointed out that “if it was neither wages nor pensions that caused inflation and if prices are rising like never before, we also don’t forget that profits are growing like never before, namely in large distribution”.
“Today we are all over the country, here in Lisbon, at the head of Pingo Doce, which generated a further EUR 261 million in profit in the first half of this year alone, but that is also the case on the mainland, because example”, declared Catarina Martins, criticizing that the “Government has done everything possible to do nothing” and “let it go”.
And he pointed out that “in Portugal there is no tax on excessive profits, which is why companies have made excessive profits”, accusing the government of almost behaving like “Galp’s lawyer or Pingo Doce’s lawyer”.
Catarina Martins defends the need to “listen to the country”
The Left Bloc coordinator called on the government to “listen to the country” before presenting next year’s state budget, saying that the idea of the dialogue majority was “buried from the start”.
“The idea of the dialogue majority, as you have seen, is not credible, it was buried in the beginning, as we always said it would be. Prices don’t stop going up,” said Catarina Martins.
The bloc leader was asked whether she expects the government to meet with the parties before the handover of the state budget with a view to possible negotiations, as was the case earlier when the PS did not have an absolute majority.
Catarina Martins defended that country”must be heard because politics and policy decisions are much more than what you can do in a cabinet meeting, it is listening to the country and a country that can say what it wants”.
“Let’s listen to those who work, let’s listen to those who work and have so much trouble getting to the end of the month, and let’s not keep saying that maybe one day something will happen, while people turn the gas rise, the house payment goes up, the supermarket becomes more expensive and your pension, your salary is absolutely stagnating,” he emphasized.
The BE coordinator stated that “it is part of the formalism of parliament” that the government meets with opposition parties to present the general lines of the government’s proposal for the state budget before delivery, saying that she is “certain that there will be institutional respect to be” .
From the BE perspective, andThis “is the time to impose ceilings on the prices of essential foodstuffs so that what is most fundamental to the table of those who work” and it is also “the time, of course, to update salaries and pensions and this absurd story of saying you can’t update salaries and pensions because that would cause inflation”.
“Inflation is there, the highest in the last 30 years, with wages and pensions stagnating,” he said.
Regarding the governance of the current executive led by António Costa, the leader of the Bloco believed that “the balance of these six months should be the balance of the impact that the administration has on people’s lives”.
And he pointed out that it took “six months for the government not to respond to people, pull tricks and say it would help retirees and then finally it would help nothing and yield a 3.5% increase when inflation reaches 9.5%.” is” .
“This delay, if it makes life more difficult for those who live off their jobs, is also a delay that fills the pockets of an elite who have made excessive profits and are paying them in dividends placed outside the country,” he said. . criticized. , stating that “this inability to respond to the land, this postponement of solutions is actually a response for an elite” because “while most people who make a living from their work are getting harder and harder, these large economic groups have exorbitant profits.” created “.
Source: DN
