José Manuel Fernandes, PSD Member of the European Parliament since 2009, is clear and the sentence leaves no room for doubt: “The PSD should not do it, not even here in Madeira, wherever it is, it should not make any agreement with Chega”.
The former mayor of Vila Verde [entre 1997 e 2009] and a former congressman is convinced that “here [na Madeira] this question will not be asked – neither post-election coalition nor place in the regional government – because the PSD will have an absolute majority,” but in putting himself as “only after the votes are counted does anyone win”, he assumes to be “very clear” and reaffirms what he defends: “No agreement whatsoever with Chega”.
The position of the leader of the PSD MEPs coincides with that of Paulo Rangel, vice president of the party, and also an MEP, who always stuck to what he said in 2021: “Agreements with Chega are an insurmountable red line”.
Jaime Filipe Ramos, PSD-Madeira parliamentary leader, says this scenario [o de uma coligação pós-eleitoral com o Chega] “at the moment it does not apply. Our bet is with the CDS. Any other scenario is not equivalent to us at this stage. An agreement outside the CDS does not seem likely to us at the moment.” At the moment? “That is to say: it will come to the regional government, no.”
The red line drawn by the Social Democrat, which does not exclude other scenarios of understanding, is based on the premise that “talk to all parties who have two principles: respect for democracy and autonomy. Parties that do not have these principles … we do not speak.”
“Our commitment is to the people. We are more concerned with reaching agreement with the people, reaching a comfortable majority, which of course will have to be an absolute majority,” he emphasizes.
Miguel Albuquerque, president of the regional government and PSD-Madeira leader, who has already asked that Chega be respected, defended last year that [no PSD] “we must always open bridges of dialogue. This stigmatization of Chega comigo does not work (…) it is a legal party, like any other party. We don’t need to have complexes.”
Asked by DN, in January, if he would admit, “if it were necessary to keep the majority, a post-election parliamentary agreement with Enough or rule out this possibility?”, the PSD-Madeira leader did not answer yes or no, or maybe.
André Ventura, for his part, who sees himself “as an opposition and an alternative to the current PSD-CDS government”, as he told DN at the end of January, and who is committed to an electoral campaign to see the social-democratic and centrist government – the exhausting opposition does not bring electoral gains, it has a well-defined plan: “We will not accept an agreement along the lines of the one in the Azores.” Translation? “Negotiations” yes, but to “form a government”.
For PS-Madeira leader Sérgio Gonçalves – given the “apparent change of position” of the PSD-M which “only excludes Chega from the government, thus conceding parliamentary accords after the elections” – what is happening, he says , is “revealing the bewilderment that reigns in the PSD and in the regional government”.
“These differences are common. It is a habit to give the said before the unsaid. Incidentally, it should be remembered that Miguel Albuquerque never definitively closed the door on Chega”, emphasizes.
The socialists, assures Sérgio Gonçalves, have “clearly drawn the red line: Enough and PSD/CDS”.
With the undoing of the right-wing apparatus in the Azores, leaving the government of social democrat José Manuel Bolieiro without a majority in the Azores parliament – a piece of rope that could break at the end of the year in the vote on the regional Budget, PSD source believes that Luís Montenegro’s “nim”, despite being clearer than Miguel Albuquerque’s, and not allowing him to “take off in the polls”, could have “foreseeable costs if for any reason there is a need in Madeira in the name of stability [a manutenção do poder de 47 anos] to accept Chega in a parliamentary agreement”.
And the predictability is in “who dances in the circle”, in the phrase of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in a recent interview with RTP and Público: “Any party on the right or left, center right or center left that wants to lead the respective hemisphere must have a clear ascendant, otherwise the void will be filled by the others. Does this mean that the leadership that has legitimized itself by voting for two years and has a long journey ahead of it is incapable of doing so? Does not mean. Professor Barbosa de Melo had a phrase that I really like, which is: “who dances in the circle”. Whoever is in the wheel now is the leader of the opposition. Only one from the outside enters if the person in the circle decides to leave or directs the dance to allow room for another to enter.”.
Translation: If Luís Montenegro “shows no dancing talent, someone else will dance” because “if Albuquerque dances with Chega, Luís condemns or assumes that the PSD can ally itself with a radical party”.
The PS calculator and PSD accounts
Miguel Albuquerque confirmed, Jaime Filipe Ramos reconfirmed and José Manuel Fernandes pushed for the idea that “the European Union supports Madeira more” – because it provides more money – than “the Government of the Republic”.
The PSD-Madeira faction leader states that “region experienced much more European than national solidarity. It’s an awareness. Our closeness to European development, in the different indicators, owes much more to Europe than to the Portuguese state. The contributions we receive from the State are insufficient”.
And moreover, explains Jaime Filipe Ramos, “these are transfers that the state still considers solidarity, which is very strange: it seems that we are Portuguese out of solidarity”.
“what’s coming [do Orçamento do Estado]does not come to 200 million, it is around 190, and this is insufficient given constitutional obligations such as health care and education, where there are already additional costs of more than 40%he says.
The solution, he argues, to avoid this “40% overcharge” in health care and education “is to take what the national cost per capita is and what should be added to it with regard to the problem of the insularity”, which “should amount to about 200 million”. for both regions [Açores e Madeira]”. Which means, “probably 100 million” added to the “about 200 million” of the transfer of the state budget “could be a solution”.
And to correct what José Sócrates “did in 2007”, by amending the regional financial law drafted in 1998 by António Guterres, “harming Madeira”, the law must be “revised, reach a reasonable level” and also ” to guarantee its own tax regime, more autonomy, fiscal competitiveness”.
José Manuel Fernandes, PSD MEP of the European Parliament shares the same statement that “most of what is here has been implemented by the budget of the European Union and not by transfers from the state budget” and even praises the “use that has been made here is made of European funds”.
But isn’t that also the case in the Azores and on the mainland? “Yes, of course. It’s the same. The problem is that the state budget, transfers, to Madeira have not had the same contribution”. More money? “Give what is fair”. This is what? “I didn’t do the math, but it was to put Madeira and the Azores in the same conditions as if they were there next to the mainland. And to give these areas fiscal autonomy”.
The calculations that the Social Democratic MEP did not make, and that Miguel Albuquerque did not present in the statements he made, have already been carried out by the Socialists. Sérgio Gonçalves guarantees that “this information they tried to pass on is not true. It is not true”.
“Just look at what’s happened between 2015 and 2023, since Miguel Albuquerque has been president of the government: the sum in terms of remittances from the state budget – and we’re talking about the regional finance law and also Social Security remittances – have been about 2,200 million euros. Remittances from the European Union are 811 million”, he explains.
In short, it says: “State remittances are almost three times the remittances of the European Union”.
Sara Cerdas, a socialist MEP, says exactly the same: “What the PSD says is wrong. It is a false statement”.
An orange PRR?
Sérgio Gonçalves presents as an argument of national “solidarity”, for example the fact that the government of António Costa has allocated 600 million euros to Madeira. And the explanation is simple: “We have about 2.5% of the population and receive 5% of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) budget. There was a clear increase”.
However, he regretsthere is not a single euro for private initiative, not a single euro to support shipowners, not a single euro to support farmers, not a single euro to support fishermen. Because there is not a single euro to support the business fabric”.
Sara Cerdas, for her part, speaks of “an option to feed the machinery of the regional government. There is no sustainable coherent investment”.
On the issue of the regional financial law, Sérgio Gonçalves expressed his astonishment at the statements made by Jaime Filipe Ramos, parliamentary leader of PSD-Madeira.
“We have unanimously approved here in the Madeira Regional Assembly, all parties, a proposal to revise the Regional Finance Law that would significantly increase the funds for Madeira and also for the Azores, but the government of Miguel Albuquerque has rejected this proposal put it in a drawer and said he was going to set up a working group. And what happened? So far nothing is known. I cannot understand how someone says it is necessary and urgent to change the law and then makes a proposal that has even been approved by the PSD and CDShe says.
Source: DN
