The PSD will hold parliamentary conferences on the state of the nation in Sintra on Monday and Tuesday, under the slogan “Portugal on the right track”, which will be closed by the party’s president, Luís Montenegro.
The State of the Nation debate, which ends the parliamentary year politically, is scheduled for July 17.
In the first parliamentary days of the Social Democrats since the PSD/CDU-PP government came to power on April 2, there were no members of the executive branch among the speakers, with the exception of Prime Minister Luis Montenegro.
Before the official opening of the day, scheduled for 3:00 p.m. by PSD parliamentary leader Hugo Soares, MPs will be divided into five groups on Monday morning to visit the Queluz Social Welfare Center, the Sintra Business Association, the Marble Stone Exploration Company, the Education Center for Disabled Citizens and the Escola da Guarda, a GNR educational institution, in Queluz.
After the opening, the first panel of the conferences will be dedicated to the theme “Care and Respect” and will feature speeches by Eurico Castro Alves, doctor and coordinator of the Emergency Health Plan approved by the government at the end of May, and Isabel. Jonet, President and Founder of the Food Bank.
University professor and television commentator Nuno Rogueiro will be the speaker of the second debate on the topic of “Portugal in Europe and the World”.
The dinner on the first day, which coincides with Portugal’s European Football Championship Round of 16 game against Slovenia, will, contrary to tradition, not feature a guest speaker.
On Tuesday, the debate will focus on the theme “Challenges and Opportunities from Politics to Economics”, with speakers including journalist Mafalda Anjos and former Secretary of State for Entrepreneurship Carlos Oliveira.
The final session is scheduled for 12:00, with a new speech by Hugo Soares and a speech by Luis Montenegro.
The last parliamentary days of the SDP took place on October 16 and 17 last year and were devoted to the state budget. Among the speakers were the former President of the Economic and Social Council, the socialist Francisco Assis, and the former Minister of Peace Amaral.
At that time, António Costa was Prime Minister, a position he resigned from less than a month later, on November 7, after the Attorney General’s Office issued a statement naming him as a target of an investigation as part of the scope of the so-called Operation Influential Person, a legal process that is investigating the installation of the “data center” in Sainz, as well as the lithium and hydrogen business.
In these parliamentary days, the PSD announced a vote against the state budget for 2024 – a document that is still being implemented since no corrections were made – and Luis Montenegro, then leader of the opposition, blamed the government for the absolute majority of the votes. PS achieving the right bills “at the cost of suffering for families and companies” and growth of the economy.
“I believe that Portugal needs someone, and in this case from the main opposition party, to say that if the king does not go naked, he will at least be half naked,” Luis Montenegro said at the end of these days .
The SDP leader then admitted that it was better to have these accounts clean “than in a situation of imbalance or pre-bankruptcy”, which, in his opinion, is typical of socialist leaders.
“But having the right records at the expense of suffering for families, companies and at the expense of economic growth… Having the right records with this strategy is not the future of Portugal, it cannot last forever,” he warned.
SMA//JPS
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