Left parties criticized the government for helping large retailers after António Costa signed a pact to stabilize and lower food prices with the Portuguese Association of Distribution Companies and the Confederation of Farmers of Portugal.
“The announcement showed the government’s lack of courage in fighting the abuses that exist in supermarkets. Profits of major retailers have risen to record levels. The state will reduce VAT by helping distributors who have made millionaire profits at the expense of the impoverishment of the country. Some can do everything, others have to pay everything. So much tension in this measure and the government makes a gentlemen’s agreement by which it has benefited so much…”criticized Pedro Filipe Soares, deputy from the left bloc.
“The profits of the wholesale distribution continue, and the pensions continue to cut and wages lose purchasing power. Government will transfer public resources to the wholesale distribution. The announced measures do not respond to this stark contrast and to increase the profits of the large retail pay for these difficult times families are going through”noted Duarte Alves of the Portuguese Communist Party.
Rodrigo Saraiva, of the Liberal Initiative, recalled that his party had “proposed a VAT cut on all food to take effect in January”. “The government has made these two measures appear as an inflationary measure. Why only now?” asked the deputy, who said that “this press conference was also a death certificate for the minister of Agriculture”
on update
Source: DN
