Livre spokesman Rui Tavares said the country was “lost in daily disputes and dismissals” that ultimately “mask the real issues”, while criticising the government’s lack of dialogue.
Speaking to Lusa news agency as part of the State of the Nation debate on Wednesday in the Assembly of the Republic, Rui Tavares said he sees a country “in which daily debates and political commentary hide weaknesses, very big weaknesses.”
The Livre MP believes that the country is overly focused on “resignations and a hot topic for political commentary”, which ultimately masks the “essential problems of the country” that the party wants to “expose so that Portugal can face the main issues of discussing what you should do with your future”.
Rui Tavares insisted on the criticism of the lack of dialogue on the part of the PSD/CDU-PP minority government, saying that it had gone from a situation of an absolute socialist majority, “very closed in on itself” to “a situation of great uncertainty and practically ungovernability, but with a minority that also does not engage in any dialogue, which is even stranger.”
Asked what the priorities of the Livre bench will be in September, after the parliamentary recess, Rui Tavares stressed, firstly, that Portugal needs to “reinvent its economy”.
“In a Europe that has expanded to more than 30 countries, where per capita GDP will fall significantly, we cannot depend on cohesion funds as we did before. This does not mean that European funds will run out, as some parties often try to make us believe. It means that we must know how to compete and capture the much more interesting European funds, but these are the ones in which the States should invest more money and which are very specialized,” he stressed.
In this context, the MP recalled Livre’s proposal to create a Portuguese agency for artificial intelligence.
As local elections approach next year, Livre also wants to put the “quality of life issue” in cities and towns at the centre of political debate, meaning “less pollution, fewer cars, better public transport and safer sidewalks.”
Tavares argued that these topics, sometimes considered “minor”, are absent “in any advanced democracy, in any richer society in Europe, and there is no reason why they should be in Portugal.”
Livre also wants to improve relations between the state and citizens, which he considers “often too hierarchical, too rigid, too authoritarian, despite the efforts made in the past by Simplex or the civic shops.”
A state of the nation debate is scheduled for Wednesday, the first since the SDP/CDU-PP minority leader took office, with Prime Minister Luis Montenegro and the rest of the government taking part.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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