The PS will present a standard in parliament to “clarify clearly and fully” that integrated and shared management of resources between political parties and parliamentary groups is possible, something it says the law already allows.
“For the Socialist Party, our understanding of the law on the financing of political parties is clear. We believe that it already today in an absolutely clear way allows for integrated management and shared management of resources between the political parties . and the parliamentary groups”said in statements to RTP, the assistant general secretary of the PS, João Torres, following the searches targeting the PSD and its former leader, Rui Rio.
According to the party leader, the PS “takes the initiative to clarify in a completely clear and thorough manner that this possibility is a possibility that arises from the law on the financing of political parties”.
“We will therefore submit a rule in this regard to the Assembly of the Republic, which will obviously not change the limits currently set for granting grants, neither in the case of political parties nor in the case of parliamentary groups he explained. .
Noting that in the case of the PS and other political parties “the parliamentary groups are party organs”, João Torres said that after the steps regarding the PSD “doubts arose about the concrete conditions for the application of the law on the financing of political parties”.
“And we think it is very important to establish this understanding, which I think is shared by the political parties that have parliamentary groups, because it seems to me that this is a broad understanding in relation to this issue,” he added.
Without going into details “about the concrete nature of the interpretative standard” that the PS group will deliver, João Torres reiterated that “the legal system already clearly allows for resource sharing and integrated management for activities of an impartial political nature, which has nevertheless raised some doubts in recent days”.
“And what we are considering in light of this fact is that the Socialist Party must take the initiative in the sense of, through a standard that it will present in Parliament, in an absolutely unquestionable way, in an absolutely unambiguous way , clarifies this possibility , which in fact seems absolutely rational to me,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Justice Police (PJ) mobilized some 100 inspectors and computer and financial experts for a series of 20 house searches, including the home of former PSD chairman Rui Rio and the party’s national headquarters.
CNN reported these searches firsthand, at around 10:30 a.m., with teams living outside Rui Rio’s residence, in Porto, and next to the PSD’s national headquarters in Lisbon, citing that they took place because of “suspicions of crimes of embezzlement and abuse”. in force”.
According to CNN, it involves the use, which is considered inappropriate, of funds for the offices of parliamentary groups with staff working for the party outside parliament.
According to the PJ statement, at around noon on Wednesday, the “use of resources of a public nature, in a political-partisan context, is being investigated, with suspicions of the possible commission of crimes of embezzlement and abuse of power (crimes for which political office holders are responsible), to facts whose relevant start of action dates back to 2018” – when Rui Rio led the PSD.
On Thursday, the PSD, through its Secretary General, Hugo Soares, wrote a letter to the Attorney General of the Republic, Lucília Gago, protesting the searches she targeted, qualifying them as “deeply disproportionate”.
Source: DN
