The leader of Chega warned on Wednesday that any government measure that would lead to higher fuel prices in Portugal would meet with “firm opposition” from the party in the state budget, as it would be wrong at a political and economic level.
At a press conference at Chega’s national headquarters in Lisbon, André Ventura was asked about news from Jornal de Negócios that the government was considering ending emergency fuel support.
“This is a gross mistake, which, moreover, contradicts what the SDP itself has defended in parliament over the past few years,” the leader of Čega responded.
André Ventura said that, according to the OECD, Portugal has “one of the most serious fiscal constraints on fuel”, stressing that the PS has always refused to make “any significant reduction” in these taxes, and “the PSD has always been like Chega, along with tax cuts in this matter”.
“So I don’t understand why the government is ending emergency fuel support without saying the opposite. What is the opposite? It is saying that it will reduce fuel taxes either in terms of ISP or VAT,” he stressed.
Ventura warned that if the government ends emergency support and does not cut fuel taxes, “that means gas, diesel and gasoline are going to go up,” saying he hoped the executive “doesn’t go any further.”
“Any such measure that appears in the state budget for 2025 will meet our very strong resistance at the budget level, which, in fact, we have already made clear to the government during the negotiations that we held at the July meeting,” he said.
Ventura added that “any policy that means increasing fuel prices in Portugal is wrong, and it is not only wrong from a political point of view, it is also wrong from an economic point of view, because the industry is forced to compete with the European industry on an equal footing.”
When asked if the issue was discussed at the July meeting with the government on the state budget, Ventura replied that the financial issue was that, having told the executive that if he decided “to have a financial policy equal to that of the PS, he could not ask for Chega’s support in the state budget.”
At the press conference, Ventura also criticized the PS for visiting hospitals, stressing that “it is the last one who can talk about financing the health system”, but stressed that the government also “does things” in this area no better than the Socialist leaders.
Ventura, in particular, said that the government “decided to exclude from public information emergency situations, such as in obstetrics, which are closed or open,” believing that this was done so that “journalists and opposition parties do not know what is happening. This works and this does not.”
The Chega leader also accused President Luis Montenegro of presenting an emergency health programme that included 54 measures, but only two have been implemented so far.
“This is not the same as the socialist government: it is lower than what the socialist government did. The government cannot simply blame the previous government when it itself introduced 54 emergency health measures and only two are being implemented,” he said.
Ventura announced that Chega would present two draft regulations recommending that the government republish on the SNS portal information about closed emergency services and “immediately implement what it itself presented, namely the emergency plan.”
“If this does not happen, Chega will hold the government accountable in this matter before the state budget,” he said.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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