PSD president Luís Montenegro this Saturday blamed PS governments for Portugal being “increasingly poorer” and “at the bottom of the table”.
“We are in a cycle of galloping impoverishment, we remain at the bottom of the table while we have everything to be at the top,” said the Social Democratic leader, continuing: “In Portugal, there are about two million people with a income of 554 euros or less. And many of those earning above that are due to social benefits from the state. Without them, the poverty line would reach 4.5 million Portuguese.”
Speaking at a PSD Christmas dinner in Castelo de Paiva, in the northern Aveiro district, Luís Montenegro pointed out to militants that “in all countries of Europe there was a pandemic, high inflation rates and the consequences of the war in Ukraine”.
But in these countries, he noted, “there is more hope, more wealth is created, there are more opportunities and more jobs available” than in Portugal.
“There are not so many reasons for us to get poorer while others get richer, namely the countries that compared us,” he stressed, leaving some indicators.
“From 2016 to 2021, Portugal grew by a total of 7.1%, but the average of the cohesion countries grew by 18.4%,” he stressed.
For the leader of the largest opposition party, it is “a catastrophic picture from a social point of view” and the country fails to “use the opportunities and potential to reverse the situation”.
The Social Democratic leader believes that the Socialist government “has had all the tools to turn the situation in the country”.
“In 2015, the PS inherited a tidy house, a growing country, falling unemployment, certain public accounts and access to finance like never before in Portugal,” he recalled.
Montenegro admitted that the socialists “might want to get it right, but they can’t”.
“They don’t want to, they can’t. In 27 years they ruled 20. In the second seven it was bankruptcy and in these seven impoverishment,” he stressed.
The PSD leader guaranteed that the Social Democrats are “extremely committed” to preparing to “govern this country”.
“To fight against something that we cannot accept, which is this fate of always stretching out our hand, bankrupt, impoverished, waiting for subsidies to be given to us in Europe,” he said.
Montenegro stressed that “growth of wealth is the starting point to end poverty” in Portugal.
Source: DN
