The PSD accused the government on Wednesday of making “a permanent pension cut” from 2024, after the PS pointed to the cuts made by the PSD/CDS-PP director during the troika period.
In the debate in parliament requested by the PCP on: “The rise in the cost of living and profits of economic groups and the worsening of inequalities”Social Democratic parliament speaker Joaquim Miranda Sarmento and socialist deputy Carlos Pereira exchanged accusations about responsibility for the austerity measures during that period and accused each other of having a package of anti-inflation measures that is “little”.
At the meeting of the Standing Committee, which replaces plenary sessions outside the period of effective functioning of the Assembly of the Republic, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento reiterated the accusations against the government of “illusion” and “deception” in the measures announced for retirees and giving them “zero” more than what follows from the law.
“In October, retirees will receive half of the increase and in 2023 the other half. But in 2024 the increase that follows, not including this October payment, is clear from the statements of the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance: this term paid in October will not be paid again in 2023, in 2024 and for the rest of every retiree’s life”orphan.
“So this is a permanent pension discount”accused the party leader of the PSD.
Previously, the deputy chairman of the PS bank Carlos Pereira withdrew from the government led by Pedro Passos Coelho between 2011 and 2015 to pit the solutions of this executive against those of the current government.
“There were times when the law was changed to cut pensions, to introduce pension cuts, to threaten the Portuguese with pension ceilings”said.
The socialist deputy even quoted an interview from Passos Coelho in a fortnightly debate in 2014 in which the prime minister claimed that cuts in wages and pensions should be permanent.
“Does Mr. Sarmento know that the same person in the PSD office was sitting in that chair?” In a clear reference to PSD chairman Luís Montenegro, he wondered that he will not be in parliament this Wednesday.
Carlos Pereira also criticized the size of the PSD’s social emergency program – budgeted at 1.5 billion euros – compared to the 4 billion euros invoked by the prime minister as the sum of measures already implemented this year. Monday.
“Perhaps the best word to describe what the PSD did is small, to paraphrase a well-known Portuguese politician”he said, referring to the PS leader and head of government, António Costa.
In response, Miranda Sarmento returned this assessment of little to the government.
“The government foresees a billion euros in expenditure on pensions for 2023. If we remove that billion euros, the program that the cabinet presented on Monday is worth 1.4 billion, slightly less than that of the PS. That means the word little is bad. fashionable”mocked.
The PSD MP stressed that the PS signed the troika morando that provided for pension cuts for the highest reforms and warned of another mistake to retirees in terms of IRS.
“If the government updates the IRS scales, the delivery of half the pension increase in October will pay more IRS than if it were paid during the entire year 2023. Also retirees will be punished here”he considered, saying that if there is no rank update, it would mean “a brutal tax hike.”
Source: DN
