From “propaganda” to “heinous agreement”, debate even had “bandeira”

O urgent debate on the “cost of life”, demanded by the PS, which took place this Friday, September 18, in the Assembly of the Republic (AR) was entitled to accusations from part by part and even the “bandbandeira”.

For more than an hour, the parties discussed the future of the country, with the present on the tip of the tongue and fingers pointed in various directions.

The opposition accused the government of “propaganda”, of winning with the rise of fuels, of defrauding the Portuguese, being “insensitive” and “indifferent”, of being “exhausted”.

But the charges didn't end here. PS criticized the party led by André Ventura for proposing “necessary yesterday” measures only for “January 2027”.

And the Aquida accused the socialists of “hypocrisy”, for defending the decline of the VAT of fuels, but not wanting to vote on the party’s proposal in this sense because it is conditioned by a “heinous agreement” with the PSD.

The Executive, representing today in Parliament by Maria da Graça Carvalho, Minister of the Environment, and Carlos Abreu Amorim, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, ensured that “it is not making money” with the crisis that the country is going through.

One of the most striking moments of the debate, however, was the chat between the Acheva and the president of the Assembly of the Republic, José Pedro Aguiar-White, in which he ended up quoting André Ventura to rebuke him: “This is not a bandit, it has rules”.

“Government insensitive to workers living at the limit of possibility”

The first to speak in the debate was the secretary-general of the PS, José Luís Carneiro. The Socialist first argued that the AD Government is “insensitive” to the Portuguese who live at the “limit of possibilities” and “indifferent” to the “thousands and thousands of micro and medium-sized enterprises that are in difficulty”.

Carneiro also quoted statements from 2022 by the current Minister of Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, then parliamentary leader of the PSD, in which he advocated a reduction in the VAT on fuels to 6%.

“ It is not understandable that the government has not advanced with the reduction of VAT on fuels, electricity and gas from the normal rate to the reduced rate’. You know who made that statement? It was not the secretary-general of the PS, it was Joaquim Miranda Sarmento ", said the leader of the PS.

Hugo Soares accuses opposition of lying and being “populist”

The issue of fuels has come through practically the whole debate. Hugo Soares, the PSD parliamentary leader, acknowledged that prices are “actually very high” and that “weigh on people’s lives”, but rejected that the rise is the responsibility of the government.

“ Whoever says he is from the government is lying, is demagogic and is populist ", stressed, attributing the increase in prices to war.

And he went further, accusing the Secretary-General of the PS of defending an economic policy to respond to the crisis by “thinking about polls”

PS and Enough, “who is the champion of irresponsibility”?

The CDS-PP also criticized the opposition's proposals. Paulo Nuncio argued that the response to the increase in the cost of living should be “serious and responsible”, without serving as a pretext for an “unbridled competition” between the two major opposition parties – PS and Enough – to know “who is the champion of irresponsibility or the champion of demagogy”.

In turn, Mariana Leitão of the Liberal Initiative (IL) considered that the Portuguese face a “very difficult” scenario and accused the Prime Minister of being “drift” and distributing taxpayers’ money “without discretion, without vision and without effectiveness”.

“Advertising action”

Patrícia Gonçalves, do Livre, focused the intervention on tax revenue. According to the congresswoman, between March and July the government raised another EUR 926 million in VAT than in the same period of 2025, an increase of 9.7%.

“If the crisis is generating additional revenue for the State, what part of that margin will be used to protect who is losing purchasing power?” he asked.

In turn, Alfredo Maia of the CFP demanded the rejection of the increase in interest rates and criticized the effects on credit to families and companies. And Andreia Galvão, from BE, stated that the Portuguese are “overcharged”, challenging the PS to approve the bloquist proposal for a temporary drop in VAT to 0%.

Filipe Sousa, from JPP, recalled that “the families do not live by graphics” and that the wages, income, supermarket and fuels are “concrete expenditure” of families.

The Madeiran deputy argued that the State Budget for 2027 will be “the moment of truth” for AD which, in polls, is falling.

asdsd