The Prime Minister this Sunday defended the obligation to ensure that the new generation of Portugal can choose to work, as housing is “the main concern of young people when they become autonomous”, an area where the state “is now acting”.
“On this day as we start a new year, it is important to remember that the future is being built today, with and for the new generations. In education, employment, entrepreneurship, housing… In the generation of new generations”, says António Costa in the Prime Minister’s New Year’s message to Jornal de Notícias.
With a strong focus on young people and without any reference to the current political situation, the president recalls fellow socialist António Guterres’s “passion for education”, stating that it was “not insignificant” and that “education in Portugal has changed in these 27 years and with education he changed the country”, a passion that “continues today, with a coherent and inclusive public policy”.
“The new generation offers us the greatest asset a country can have: more qualified citizens. We therefore have a duty to ensure that these young people can choose to work in Portugal,” he warns.
According to Costa, in addition to creating qualified jobs, a “fair labor market” is needed, adding that “this month the Assembly of the Republic approves the Decent Work Agenda”.
“And we need decent wages. The medium-term deal in public administration ensures that in 2023 the base salary for access to senior technical careers will be €1,320, putting pressure on the private sector to raise wages in the hiring qualified young people in careers”, he defends.
For the prime minister, “housing is perhaps the biggest concern of young people as they become autonomous”.
“After decades in which the State withdrew from promoting public housing policies, we are now taking action, also together with the municipalities. We have approved the first Basic Housing Act, the National Strategy and the first 223 Local Strategies have already been contracted from Housing”, lists .
The Recovery and Resilience Plan, continues Costa, “has planned 2.7 billion euros to invest in housing, which will be a real structural change to be implemented by the end of 2026”.
“Today we are building the country that will be carbon neutral by 2050, that will have a GDP per capita in the 1940s above the European average, that will lift 660,000 people out of monetary poverty by 2030, the number of children in this situation will halve and invest 3% of GDP in R&D, and that public debt will be below 100% of GDP by 2026. This future is built in the present,” he summarizes.
Source: DN
