PS Secretary-General José Luís Carneiro accused the PSD and the CDS of attacking the party in the budget debate, considering that the Prime Minister should define a profile in the treatment of the PS.
© Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
28/10/2026
by
Lusa
O secretary-General of the PS today regretted that PSD and CDS had 'detracted and disregarded' socialists with 'incomprehensible political attacks' in the budgetary debate, considering that the Prime Minister has to define 'a profile' in the treatment of the PS.
José Luís Carneiro spoke to journalists at the entrance to a session with militants in Loures, Lisbon, on the day the PS allowed, through abstention, the State Budget for 2027 (OE2027) to be made possible.
"Of course we have had incomprehensible political attacks from leaders and people very close to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister must also define a profile in the way he treats and how he relates to the PS", he condemned.
From the perspective of the leader of the PS, Luís Montenegro “cannot detract a party that shows this attitude of responsibility towards the country and also towards a government that, as we can see, is increasingly weakened”.
"Not only have they detracted me and ignored, as secretary-general of the PS, as they did in relation to my colleagues, the Secretary-General who preceded me in these functions, Pedro Nuno Santos, the one who had responsibility in housing policy, Marina Gonçalves, our parliamentary leader", he criticized.
According to Carneiro, the current "political intervention profile" of the PSD and the CDS-PP is not "nothing compatible" with the history of the two parties.
“(...) sometimes people, when they are insecure, are becoming more aggressive. Therefore, I do not want to believe that it is this feeling of government insecurity that makes the government more aggressive towards the Socialist Party', he added.
Carneiro insisted that now having a political crisis with a possible lead from the State Budget "would mean creating additional difficulties for those already experiencing serious problems in the cost of living, in housing, in wages".
'And at the same time it would be opening the country's doors to what is today a polarization, a demagogy, which is creating serious difficulties for democracies', he said.
For the leader of the PS, his party “has a first duty” which is with the country and with the Portuguese “who already live very difficult times in their lives and who demand a great sense of responsibility” that has to prevail at these times.
“If I were in political life to worry about myself, and to worry strictly about the party, it would be a blocking factor. But since I am here to worry about the country and that is why it will not be a cause for a break and a political crisis in the country," he replied when asked whether this attitude of the parties supporting the government could mean a different sense of vote in the overall final vote.

