The PSD chairman called this Thursday a “high priority” for the medium term to create a “true national program” to attract, welcome and integrate immigrants to cope with Portugal’s demographic crisis.
“From my point of view, if I had to name the top priority I see in the medium term, I would invest to finally find a way to design and then get the social and political support to expand a program [de captação de imigrantes] of this size”pointed out Luís Montenegro, in Porto, at a dinner organized by the city’s commercial association.
The PSD leader stressed that: “If there is no real national pact to be able to develop mechanisms to attract labor and people in the coming years, and the younger the better”the problem will not be solved by “one’s magic work”.
“That’s why I defended (…) We don’t need to waste time defining, creating and implementing a truly national program to attract, welcome and integrate immigrants”said.
Demography, for the PSD leader, “is a problem” that is “neglected” in Portugal that needs to be addressed.
“We will have no way out for the next 20, 30 years but to attract a qualified workforce, to keep the talent that we can create, but then to capture talent, attract talent, attract people with different qualifications, so that they can today meet the manpower needs that are transversal to all sectors of activity”warned.
According to Luís Montenegro, Portugal’s future also depends on its ability to generate wealth, something he accused the PS of not being able to do, despite being a “today almost hegemonic from the point of view of the scope of intervention”.
“It is the dominant party, it is the party that effectively has the power to lead the administration with an absolute majority in Parliament, which has the largest representation in the European Parliament, which has the largest number of City Council presidencies, which holds and holds the largest number of presidencies of the parish councils, most sectors of the decentralized administration and also of the centralized administration in Portugal”described.
However, he said, “The truth is that the situation today is unfortunately a situation of general impoverishment in the country and not because of the pandemic and not because of the war”.
For this reason, Montenegro once again insisted that the PS “fails to be worthy of the trust placed in it”.
“It is also true that the situation has deteriorated a lot in recent months and has deteriorated so much that we feel that the government, invested six months ago, won elections less than a year ago, it seems that it is already on the end of the term, the end of the cycle, as they say, such is the inability to change things”orphan.
Source: DN
