The Prime Minister was in the Assembly of the Republic this afternoon for the monthly general policy debate, in a plenary session that lasted nearly four hours.
In the interventions that were made, António Costa was – unsurprisingly – confronted with the recent cases in the government, especially the most recent, involving the former Secretary of State for Tourism, Rita Marques, who gave a company that benefits while she tutored her. On the subject, the Prime Minister said he was “99.9% sure it is illegal” and assumed the message signed by Rita Marques could be “reassessed”.
As for the case of Alexandra Reis, who left TAP with a compensation of 500,000 euros, António Costa was also convinced of the illegality of the behavior and said that the former finance minister should have repaid the amount when she was appointed to NAV, something that didn’t happen.
Other topics discussed included the mechanism for verifying future leaders – an idea shared by António Costa in last week’s debate on IL’s proposed motion of censure – with the prime minister announcing that the president of the republic will accept the first proposal had rejected after “verifying the appropriate steps”, but who approved a second suggestion, which will be discussed in the Council of Ministers this Thursday.
Education and health were also hot topics during the debate, with António Costa revealing that, in the case of teachers, the government’s meetings with the unions as the main focus will discuss “a new hiring model that will allow teachers to be let go and with uncertainty”. In Health, the Prime Minister said he will ask the Minister about the reason for the spreading of vacancies for specialists – which left vacancies in several fields, such as paediatrics or neurology.
Read below the video of the events of this afternoon’s debate:
Source: DN
