This Thursday, the PSD challenged the prime minister to leave behind a “state of denial”, with António Costa sending impoverishment criticism back to the social democrats and claiming responsibility for the “biggest growth cycle in decades”.
“If the Portuguese have experienced a socialist bankruptcy with José Sócrates, the Portuguese have suffered a socialist impoverishment with António Costa,” criticized PSD parliamentary leader Joaquim Miranda Sarmento during the first intervention in the debate on the state of the nation , the last parliamentary debate before vacation.
The Social Democrat cited as examples the doubling of benefits for the Portuguese with housing loans, the “decrease in real wages by 4% in 2022” or the fact that half of pensioners cannot buy all the medicines they need.
“I leave you a challenge: in the state of the nation, leave the state of denial you are in,” Miranda Sarmento asked.
In response, António Costa replied that, “like it or not”, the PSD has been the impoverishment party, citing statements by former Social Democratic leaders who warned of the risks of raising the National Minimum Wage (SMN ) by the socialist government.
“And it was your current leader who said here, when he was parliamentary leader in 2016, that with the increase of the SMN, I would become the father of the fourth bailout in the country. What we have been are the fathers and mothers of the biggest growth cycle of the past decade,” countered.
Turning to the problem of rising interest rates on home loans, the prime minister said the government is studying “new measures to reinforce” the measures already taken to support these loans, and rebuked the PSD parliamentary leader.
“I have been criticized several times by people in your political circle for criticizing the ECB’s policies, I have never heard you say a word about the evolution of interest rates,” he noted.
In an interpellation at the table, Miranda Sarmento asked the chamber to inform how the governor of the Bank of Portugal and former finance minister of the PS government, Mário Centeno, voted on these increases and the times of the ‘troika’ to the debate .
“I don’t know if you will be the father of the fourth rescue, but you will at least be the uncle of the third,” he said.
Source: DN
