Government to ‘start talks’ with military on salary increases

The Prime Minister announced on Thursday that the government would “launch” a negotiating process with the military to increase the rewards, without committing to any amounts but ensuring that it would not jeopardise public accounts.

Speaking to reporters after a NATO summit in Washington, which was attended by the Minister of National Defense, Luis Montenegro was asked whether the increased investment in defense that he announced at the meeting included an increase in military salaries.

“As part of the component of increased defense spending, investments in human resources are also planned. This involves a number of solutions, from assessing the conditions for supporting former combatants to incentives to make a military career more attractive and, naturally, updating salaries,” he responded.

Montenegro stressed that the government had already “committed to starting this work” after reaching an agreement with the security forces.

“As you know, this was achieved this week, and therefore we will calmly, under the leadership of the Minister of National Defense, establish those contacts that are necessary in order to be able to launch this process,” he said.

The Prime Minister left “words of deep gratitude for the patience” and restraint of the military.

“It was often difficult from a social point of view to face a process that was happening right next door and that indirectly affected them. But I wrote it down as an indication, which is not new to me. “This is a responsible position, a position at the level of what is expected from those who represent the power of the state,” he praised.

Asked whether the military’s pay rise could match that of police officers (an increase of about 300 euros), the prime minister refused to adhere to values.

“I’m not going to talk about numbers, I just want to say that the Government is committed to increasing military pay in this triple dimension: supporting ex-combatants, making recruitment into the Armed Forces attractive and paying tribute to reward criteria and career performance,” he said.

Montenegro stressed that these efforts would be undertaken “without compromising the balance of public accounts,” leaving an implicit signal to the previous PS government.

“We will also not be among those who will protect the tax collections that may arise from people and companies, imposing unjustified sacrifices on those who serve the state and through the state serve citizens and serve our society,” he said. emphasized.

The Prime Minister expressed his intention to extend these efforts to raise salaries across the entire public administration.

“We are going to try to find a fair balance between a thriving economy that creates wealth, that creates the financial means for the state to promote social justice, and also to improve the quality of public administration. There is a need to qualify public administration,” he said.

Montenegro took the opportunity to mark the first hundred days of the government’s rule, highlighting that he is next to Nuno Melo, the leader of the SDS-PP, the party that, together with the SDP, supports the executive power, which took office on April 2.

“I want to tell the Portuguese people calmly, with my feet firmly on the ground, that I am not impressed by either the good or the bad times. I know that these days there are many positive assessments of the government’s performance, but I want to say that we have still done very little of what we want to do for Portugal,” he said.

This week at a summit in Washington, the Portuguese prime minister announced that Portugal will increase defense investment in 2029 to six billion euros to reach the 2% of gross domestic product agreed with NATO.

Portugal is one of the 12 countries from Europe and North America that founded NATO in 1949.