The Assembly of the Republic meets today with the Standing Committee to discuss the rise in the cost of living, a topic that promises to remain on the agenda in the coming weeks, and the discussion of the state budget (OE) for 2023 by to take. But, until the start of the budget discussion, in about a month – the The OE will be delivered to deputies on October 10 – Parliament will still have to close several diplomas handed over from July. This is the case with metadata, the decriminalization of medically assisted death or the new regulation of professional bodies.
The conference of parliamentary leaders, which met yesterday, has scheduled the debate on the PSD’s social emergency program for next week. A day later, it will be the turn of the measures announced by the government to mitigate the effects of the price increase, some of which will have to pass through the Assembly of the Republic: this is the case with the 2% ceiling on the increase in rents , as well as the reduction in VAT on electricity, in the part taxed at 13%, to 6%. The same will happen with the increase in pensions for 2023. There may be some support measures for companies that the government has not yet announced.
Metadata, euthanasia and biweekly debates
If the topic of inflation and the rise in the cost of living has been on the rise in recent months and promises to expand in the coming months, it will be in committee that some of the files pending at the end of this year, July is now moving forward. One of the most urgent will be the metadata diploma, pressured by the complaints of the various agents of justice about the serious consequences in the criminal investigation. On the agenda of the working group that will close the final version of the diploma, which will try to break the unconstitutionality declared by the Constitutional Court, there are already several hearings – namely the National Director of the Judicial Police, the President of ANACOM, the Ombudsman or the National Commission for Data Protection. After the hearings, the diploma still has a long way to go: once sent to Belém, the new text will be analyzed by the Constitutional Court, as already guaranteed by the President of the Republic. The law rejected by the TC stipulated that telephone and Internet service providers must retain customer communications data (such as origin, destination and location of calls) for a period of one year for possible use in criminal investigations, a tool that has been identified as essential.
Another issue that – again – is returning to the parliamentary agenda is the decriminalization of medically assisted death, widely approved in June, with the working group led by socialist Maria Antónia Almeida Santos seeking to reconcile the four bills on the table. , from PS, BE, IL and PAN. Since the different proposals have very similar content, a surgical response to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s veto is, the final diploma may still appear with some additional changessuch as the obligation to consult a psychologist or a concrete definition of the time to mediate between the start of the process and the completion of medically assisted death.
The projects on professional orders and changes to labor laws, within the framework of the so-called “Agenda do Trabalho Dignified”, also return to Parliament, in an agenda that also includes the theme of burning and, predictably, health, at a time when Minister Marta Temido is stepping down and several parties have already advanced to request parliamentary consideration of the new National Health Service Statute.
The biweekly debates with the Prime Minister also return to the discussion between the deputies. The process of reviewing the Assembly regiment was not completed in July, and with the model of debates still open: PS and PCP propose monthly debates, while the other parties insist on returning every two weeks to the model of debates.
PSD against “folklore” refuses to give an opinion
Yesterday, the Enough motion for a resolution condemning the President of the Assembly of the Republic, accused by André Ventura’s party of partiality and lack of exemption, came back on the agenda of the deputies. Yesterday, the PSD, the party that should draft an opinion, asked for an “excuse” for this task and stated that it did not intend to contribute to “folklore”. Citing Santos Silva’s request, who asked the Constitutional Affairs Committee for advice on the admissibility of the project, Social Democratic deputy Paula Cardoso said the AR president himself “recognizes that it is not a regimental issue or constitutional”, but “an ethical-political issue”. “If it is an ethical-political question, it is not for us to give opinions about this folklore between the President of the Assembly of the Republic and Chega”, added the Social Democratic parliamentarian, quoted by Lusa, stressing that the PSD is “neither today nor from now on available to participate” in issues like this. The refusal motivated protests from the remaining banks, but the opinion was ultimately attributed to Inês Sousa Real, of the PAN.
Source: DN
