The secretary-general of the PS presented a series of data this Friday to support that Portugal has grown more than France, Spain and Germany over the past seven years, which is in line with the European Union average.
This position, which goes against the idea of the “Portuguese carro-broom” advocated by PSD leader Luís Montenegro, was taken by António Costa at the end of the evocative session of seven years of socialist governments led by him, which took place on the Terreiro do Paço River Station, in Lisbon.
“It has been seven very intense years, since the threat of sanctions against Portugal, the need to stabilize the financial system, the exit from the European Union’s excessive deficit procedure, natural disasters and a pandemic, now a war and a cycle of inflation like it hasn’t been crossed for 30 years. But it was seven years when we presented results and left traces”started supporting the prime minister.
In terms of economic growth, António Costa argued that the country grew by an average of 0.2% in the 15 years leading up to 2015, while in the last seven “it grew by an average of 2%, which is ten times more”🇧🇷
After pointing out that the unemployment rate has dropped to less than half from 2015 to date, he argued that Portugal has converged to the European Union average in all years of its governments, assuming the case of 2020, when it country had the peak of the covid-19 pandemic.
“Growing above average means moving closer to the most developed countries within the European Union and, according to the European Commission and international organizations, we will continue to grow above the European average in 2023 and 2024. If we grow above the European average, even closer to the most developed countries come to the fore”noted.
According to data from António Costa on GDP per capita, the distance between Portugal and France has decreased by 2.6 percentage points since 2015.
“Compared to Germany it was down 3.8 percentage points and compared to Spain it was even down 7.1 percentage points. Yes, we are growing more than Germany, France and Spain – and it is in relation to these countries that we are approaching”he said at the end of a day when PSD, Iniciativa Liberal and Chega criticized the socialist executive for the prospect that Portugal would soon be overtaken by Romania.
Among the seven topics the socialist leader covered in his long speech, he placed after that of growth that of proper bills, emphasizing that Portugal is currently paying less in debt interest and that families are paying two billion less in IRS compared to the rates applied in 2015.
As a third topic, António Costa chose income and social justice, highlighting that the minimum wage grew by 78% over the lifetime of his executives and that pensions always exceeded the legal average.
In the fourth area, that of qualifications, the PS leader highlighted the reduction of early school leaving to less than half of that in 2015, currently below 6%.
“There are more students in higher education, there is an increase in scholarships and we have successively broken records in attracting foreign investment”said.
In the fifth area, health, the secretary general of the PS advocated that the allocation of the SNS in 2023 will total 12.29 billion euros – an increase of 56% compared to 2015.
“There are 23,542 more employees, of which 18% more doctors (including interns) and 9,775 more nurses, representing a 25% increase. There are more medical consultations in primary health care, more than 644,000 medical consultations in hospital health care, and more than 83,000 surgeries”defended.
With regard to climate change, the sixth area, António Costa said that the European Commission believes that Portugal is the Member State best placed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
In the seventh and final area, that of state reform, the prime minister stressed the issue of security, saying that his governments “invested five times more in security forces than right-wing governments”.
‘There is a decrease in the number of pending cases in the judiciary’he also stated before trying to emphasize the processes of decentralization and the “democratization” of the coordinating committees.
Source: DN
