The PSD chairman accused the government on Saturday of carrying out the policy “in a cunning and secretive manner”.
In an intervention at the 1st Iberian Youth Summit – organized by the Juventude Social Democrata (JSD) and the ‘Nuevas Generaciones’ (NNGG), the youth organization of the Spanish People’s Party – Luís Montenegro pointed to a peculiarity of the Portuguese Government “never tells the whole truth” and adheres to the “half-truths”.
In an intervention that lasted about 45 minutes, the PSD chairman began by pointing to the case of the pensions, saying that it was necessary to “rob” the whole truth from the government and, more recently, the principle of agreement between the executives of Portugal, Spain and France on energy interconnections.
“The PSD in Portugal and the Spanish PP have fiercely denounced the half-truth. A day has passed, two days have passed and now everything is in great turmoil, the governments of Spain, of Portugal with the French government, say all that ‘attention to electrical connections across the Pyrenees should be done.’ If it was so true, why didn’t they say so in the day?” he asked, after the PSD accused the government of having two of the three energy connections foreseen in the previous agreement.
“Who believes in this word now solemnly given by these three governments? I do not believe it,” Montenegro added.
The PSD leader echoed criticism he leveled at the government on Friday for “withholding and concealing information about Efacec’s failed privatization process” after being questioned directly in parliament on the subject.
“This covert and cunning way of doing politics doesn’t ennoble politics, it doesn’t ennoble the government, doesn’t give confidence to citizens and means playing with money that belongs to everyone,” he accused.
This week, the Minister of Environment and Climate Action, Duarte Cordeiro, labeled the intervention of the PSD regarding the agreement in principle between Portugal, Spain and France for the Iberian interconnections as “unfounded” and “absurd”, reaffirming that electrical connections are not gone.
Up for discussion are statements by PSD Vice-President Paulo Rangel, who accused the government of “trading the value of renewable energy and the potential of the Port of Sines for a plate of lentils”.
In his response, António Costa was stunned by the PSD’s criticism and accused Paulo Rangel of not understanding the matter.
The PSD even asked for an emergency debate on the subject in the House of Representatives, which it had planned to hold last Thursday, but which the PS opposed because it is in a period of budget discussion and can only be done from 25 November.
In contrast, the socialists asked for an extraordinary committee hearing on the subject with the environment minister to be held during the period of debate in the specialty of the state budget for 2023.
Source: DN
