The Minister of Defense will make his debut today at the next hearing in parliament

The Minister of National Defense will be heard this Tuesday in the Assembly of the Republic in his first regular hearing, after he has already announced that he is working on a package of laws that respond to the priorities of this area of ​​​​sovereignty.

A routine hearing aimed at summarizing the government’s files is scheduled for 3 p.m.

To date, Nuno Melo has only been in parliament as defense minister to clarify his statements about compulsory military service as an alternative punishment for young people who have committed petty crimes, a measure which he has, however, denied.

At these hearings, the Minister of Defense, as well as the President of the CDS-PP, stated that he intended to leave the Armed Forces “in better condition than he found them” and ultimately, after meeting with military leaders and military personnel, directed specific measures to increase recruitment. representatives of associations of officers, sergeants and privates.

Since then, Nuno Melo has stressed several times that “the time has come” for the Armed Forces to return to the “centre of concern” of political power, and last week he even said that investment in defense in the current context “is a matter of intelligence and pragmatic clarity”, emphasizing , that “at the top of everything” should be increasing the value of the armed forces.

The minister has not yet specified which measures will be studied, only emphasizing that they will always take into account “budgetary possibilities.”

In addition to measures aimed at the current ranks of the Armed Forces, Nuno Melo said that he intends to “value former combatants” with a possible improvement in their status, a concern shared by the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. who last month defended that these citizens deserve to have the legal rights they fought for recognized in life.

One of the topics on the agenda is Portugal’s possible acquisition of F-35 fighter jets after Air Force Chief of Staff General João Cartaço Alves warned last month that the country was “coming back” as the F-35 16 fighter jets reach the end of their lives, warning, that the country’s sovereignty in the air could be at stake.

Domestically, since taking office, Nuno Melo has already announced a review of all commercial and industrial licenses for military goods and technology issued by the ministry since 2015 (the year of the start of the socialist rule that preceded the current leader), following the discovery of any violations in this process.

On the international stage, about two weeks before the NATO summit in Washington, the government has already announced that it is preparing a plan for Portugal to achieve 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) in defense spending, something that the Atlantic Alliance has long asked for. and which the country expects to achieve in 2030.

According to a NATO report on spending by each member state between 2014 and 2024, Portugal will become the seventh Alliance country out of 32 to invest the least in defense in 2024. 1.55% this year.

The President of the Republic has already convened the State Council on July 15 to analyze the situation in Ukraine after the peace conference in Switzerland and a few days after the NATO summit.

Melo announced this month that Portugal would train Ukrainian troops on the use of the combat vehicles, similar to what is being done for the F-16 fighter jets, and that availability would be “immediate.”