Francisco Assis expressed hope that Costa will become the next President of the European Council

The head of Porto’s Socialist List, Francisco Assis, said this Saturday that he hopes that outgoing Prime Minister António Costa will be elected President of the European Council, succeeding the Belgian Charles Michel.

Francisco Assis’s statement came at the very beginning of his speech at the PS rally in Porto, which fills the Rosa Mota pavilion, where former Socialist leader António Costa is present (seated next to the President of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva). ) and will speak to Secretary General Pedro Nuno Santos.

“As a Portuguese and European citizen, I want António Costa to become the next president of the European Council,” said Francisco Assis, a former Socialist MEP, to applause.

In his speech, Francisco Assis emphasized that the PS is a party that has similarities and differences, but “in important moments” it knows how to be together.

“And today we are all here together because we recognize that this is a fundamental moment for our country. The PS is proud of its past and exudes great confidence and great ambition for the future,” he said.

The head of the Porto list emphasized that the PS played a decisive role in the construction of Portuguese democracy “in all its dimensions”, be it constitutional democracy immediately after April 25 or in “the construction, affirmation and maintenance of the state.” which is the guarantor of true democracy, economic, social and cultural.”

“And if there is one thing we can understand today, it is that political democracy is very difficult to survive unless it is accompanied by a high degree of economic, social and cultural democracy,” he stressed.

At this point, Francisco Assis addressed what he considered to be a “shameful accusation”, which he said had been spread by opponents of the party and which “consists of the assertion that the PS is a party that motivates welfare and deliberately intends to support pockets of poverty in Portugal for the purpose of obtaining electoral credits.”

“This is not just a lie, this is real slander, which we cannot accept in any way,” he defended himself, causing long applause from the audience.

The former Socialist parliamentary leader and former President of the Economic and Social Council (CES) also defended that the PS was “the party of freedom, equality and opportunity”, having strengthened “an education policy that has radically transformed the country”.

“If so many young Portuguese are leaving Portugal today, it is because they are very qualified and this qualification is the result of the huge investment that the PS has made in education, training and qualifications of people,” he said.

Francisco Assis also stressed that since the advent of the PS, the economy has undergone “very significant” changes, and the party is committed to continuing to modernize the economy, “a combination of public and private.”

“The PS does not accept the idea that we are a nationalizing party. If we were a nationalizing party, it would probably already be known because we ruled for so many years… If we were, it would already be known that we were a Soviet and nationalizing party,” he said.

The PS, according to Assis, is “a party that values ​​private initiative, but does not dogmatize the market, just as it does not dogmatize the state.”

“We are a party that believes in the need for a clear separation between public and private,” he said.

Highlighting the PS’s investments in culture as well as in health, despite acknowledging that there is still “something to do”, Francisco Assis said that he does not remember from the first years after April 25 “such a big rally”. for example, Saturday’s rally at the Rosa Mota Pavilion, and left a call to mobilize those undecided in the last eight days of the campaign.

“Thousands of days will depend on these eight days for Portuguese women and men. We will go with strength, confidence and commitment, we will campaign for the PS, for Pedro Nuno Santos, and he will become the next Prime Minister of Portugal.” , concluded.

In his first speech at the rally, the president of the Porto PS Federation, Eduardo Vitor Rodrigues, said António Costa was a source of “pride” for the Socialists because “he is the best prime minister since April 25.”

“He fought the crisis, abandoned austerity and made the country grow. He was a scientist who showed that the original theory of the right was wrong,” said the mayor of Vila Nova de Gaia, receiving thunderous applause.

Eduardo Vitor Rodrigues read messages from the mayors of Lisbon Carlos Moedas, Cascais, Carlos Carreiras and Porto Rui Moreira, which praised Pedro Nuno Santos when he was Minister of Infrastructure and Housing or the Socialist government.

“We both want this to happen. We are doers,” Carlos Moedas said of Pedro Nuno Santos, as quoted by the leader of the PS Porto Federation.