It was a matter of minutes between the end of the press conference and the opposition’s first reactions.
The first party to do this was Chega, voiced by leader André Ventura. In parliament, the president of Chega defended that it remained unclear “the direct responsibility of the financial administrator, who is appointed by the Minister of Finance” and the “responsibility of the executive itself” in the case of the compensation of 500 thousand euros awarded to Alexandra Reis. “[O governo] it’s like it’s protected, like the only responsibility for this was Alexandra Reis or the chairman, or TAP itself,” he said.
The PSD, on the other hand, responded through the voice of Vice President Miguel Pinto Luz. At the party’s national headquarters in Lisbon, Pinto Luz considered that Finance Minister Fernando Medina was “politically even smaller” and argued that more “political conclusions” were needed from the report the General Inspectorate of Finance made on the matter. However, Pinto Luz refused to ask for the minister’s resignation as, he argued, that decision should be made by himself and by Prime Minister António Costa.
In the Liberal Initiative, the discourse went in the same direction: “António Costa is the main political responsible for this whole situation” and therefore “there must be a political judgment on the management of TAP as a whole. We cannot see the political power, the government, being omitted from an assessment of the conduct of all these situations.”
On the left, the PCP asked a question: it is necessary to know “how many more Alexandras Reis there could be”. By the voice of Deputy Bruno Dias, in Parliament, the communists viewed the decisions made by the government on the basis of the report as “an inevitability”. “We were faced with a truly unacceptable practice, faced with an illegality that had to have a consequence”said the deputy, who considered that the payment of damages is “truly unacceptable”.
A similar view was expressed by Mariana Mortágua, from Bloco de Esquerda, who he also believed that the administration’s decisions “should be carried through with a fine-tooth comb”.
Livre already defended that the IGF’s report resolved the legal issue and defended the need for TAP to be a “viable public company”. According to Paulo Muacho, a member of Livre’s Contact Group (governing body), “this agreement represents a way of working for TAP” in which the party does not see itself.
For the PAN, the deputy – and leader – Inês Sousa Real defended that Fernando Medina “should clarify how he maintains the argument of dismissal for just cause”, since the payment of damages was known. On the other hand, the deputy asks questions to the government: “How are you going to guarantee that no more money has to be paid from the state treasury due to these layoffs? and what “the political responsibilities assigned from here”.
With Lusa
Source: DN
