Community Council asks PS about changing the law governing this body

The Permanent Council of the Council of the Portuguese Communities (CCP) has asked the PS parliamentary group for a promised proposal to amend the law governing this body, noting that this is necessary to call elections for this body.

In a “public letter”, the CCP laments the lack of a legislative initiative, despite the fact that this body “was warning since the end of September of the need to speed up the process leading to the adoption of a relevant law so that the Government can celebrate the elections to this body.”

The last CCP elections were held in 2015. Since then, elections due in 2019 have been consistently postponed and are now scheduled for this year.

The CCP recalls the “commitment” of the PS parliamentary group, which assured the Council last July that it would do so “soon, after the resumption of parliamentary work, in September.”

Later, reportedly last November, the Socialists told the CCP that the proposal “will not go beyond the end of last year.”

“We cannot help but note the strangeness of this situation, coming from a party that has an absolute majority in parliament and has been guiding the government’s community policy for more than seven years,” the letter says.

The CCP also mentions that there is “general agreement in the Assembly of the Republic on the need to urgently approve changes to the CCP’s bylaws, preferably before the end of this semester.”

Only then will the Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities have “ideal conditions to continue the call for CCP elections in the second half of this year.”

While only the SDP has submitted a bill with proposals to change the law governing the CCP, I defend some of the ideas that the PS has already shown to be unfavorable, such as remote electronic voting.

The CPC is the government’s public advisory body, currently composed of a maximum of 80 councillors, elected for four-year terms.