Sergeants insist on the urgency of raising the salaries of the military

The National Association of Sergeants (ANS) this Saturday accused the government and the PS of unwillingness to revise the military pay regime, insisting on the urgency of these changes after the socialists defeated three draft resolutions in parliament.

“Unfortunately, the government and the party that supports him in parliament still do not want to understand that it is extremely important to promote the necessary changes and ensure that the human resources of the National Defense, the most valuable asset of the Armed Forces, are appreciated. that is, soldiers who are in the service of Portugal and the Portuguese, ”the ANS note emphasizes.

The association stressed that the military remuneration system “has not been reviewed or changed properly” for more than 13 years and that the “widely publicized but erroneous and misleading increase in wages from 52 to 104 euros” does not prevent the loss of quality of life and purchasing power of the military.

The ANS believes that the lack of salary renewal “is a major cause of career unattractiveness” and “contributed significantly to the difficulties experienced in the armed forces in terms of recruiting and retaining military personnel.”

“There is an urgent need to review the remuneration regime and integrate measures to increase wages. It has become even clearer who wants and who does not want to allow,” the ANP believes, stressing that this refusal “gave even more legitimacy and moral right to use the available means to “continue and intensify the struggle to improve living and working conditions” for the military.

Three draft resolutions from PSD, PCP and BE recommended that the government review the military pay system, but were defeated on Friday in a unanimous vote against PS.

In the debate leading up to this vote in Parliament, PS MP Manuel Afonso stressed that “not so long ago” the pay table in the Armed Forces was revised, with the result that the salary increased from 52 to 104 euros.

In addition, according to the deputy, the Action Plan for the professionalization of the military career will be revised in the near future and the creation of permanent personnel for military personnel in the army and air force will be approved.

The drafts were based on a petition with more than 7,700 signatures submitted to Parliament in September 2021 by military personnel from various branches of the armed forces, in which they asked Parliament to review and change the pay system for military personnel.

The first signatories of this petition were the presidents of the National Association of NCOs (ANS), the Association of Officers of the Armed Forces (AOFA), and the Association of Privates (AP), associations that were present in the galleries of Parliament.