Livre spokesman Rui Tavares on Tuesday defended the creation of a national intermodal pass in 2025 and called the Portuguese government’s decline in rail investment in recent years “truly tragic.”
“Livre’s proposal is to move from a national rail pass, which was already Livre’s offer and which has been consistently expanded, to a true national multimodal pass, in which at an affordable price (…) we can help people save a lot of money per month” , – he said.
At the Braga conference on mobility and transport, included in the electoral campaign for the legislative elections on March 10, Rui Tavares recalled that the national rail pass costs 49 euros per month and covers 100 trains per day, and should soon increase to 250 trains.
“There are people who currently save 70 euros a month on the trips they have to make every day. Please note that 70 euros per month gives about 800 euros per year. That’s more than the Liberal Initiative’s tax cuts. for lower middle class families,” he added.
According to Rui Tavares, in Portugal there has been “no public investment” in the last 15 years, a “failure” that he noted deserves criticism from several governments, including for this invention.
“The investments that took place were European investments, now from the PRR. [Programa de Recuperação e Resiliência]. Portugal needs public investment, the problems we see in education, health and security forces are largely due to a lack of public investment, which ultimately leads to very poor working conditions for people, including in transport,” said He.
According to Rui Tavares, changing policies and increasing public investment requires electing more Livre deputies.
“This is how things are in democracy, and it is not worthwhile sometimes, amid the chanting of helpful voices, to tell us that everything is different. Livre’s ideas will have more power if voters give Livre more power through their vote,” he stressed.
In the post-election period, Tavares emphasized that Livret would not partner with anyone who was not Livret’s partner.
“And these partnerships are formed at the negotiating table, in accordance with the best European practices. Two, three, four parties, all that is necessary to maintain a four-year reign of stability in our country. We are not with twelfths over our heads, as We have time to negotiate the next budget, and Livre strongly prefers multilateral negotiations of several parties, which also involve civil society with working groups in each sector: health, education, security, environment, in which not only parties participate in this. We do not want any tricks in the offices, but only negotiations in the halls of parliament,” he concluded.
More than 10.8 million Portuguese are called to vote on March 10 to elect 230 members of the Assembly of the Republic.
18 political forces, 15 parties and three coalitions are competing in these elections.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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