Geringonça “was relief” but “lack of political will” to the PS

O former coordinator of BE Francisco Louçã considers that ‘geringonça’ was “a relief” with “very significant measures” for people’s lives, but accuses the PS of “lack of political will” to respond structurally to economic problems.

In an interview with Lusa on the week when she will be jubilant and give her last lesson at ISEG, Francisco Louçã says that she has active political life, despite “far from the spotlight” and without dispute anywhere, admitting that she enjoyed being a deputy, but that today she would not like it because of the “degree of degradation” of Parliament.

About the period of ‘geringonça’, when the socialist minority government of António Costa was supported in Parliament all over the left, the former BE leader considers that it represented “a change of climate” in the economy after a “period of great crisis” and “political and social aggression of the ‘troika’”.

“I believe that there is no retired or retired person who will forget what they have done to Christmas allowances and holidays and wage compression. We left that period to have a recovery principle. Structural responses to the major problems of the national economy were not given during this period,” he says.

According to the economist and professor, “there were corrective measures”, but they remained to do, for example, “a strategy of industrialization or of changing the structure of the housing market”.

“ It was an interruption, a relief, a promise”, summarizes about the contraption, remembering “fundamental measures” that were then implemented as transport passes or free textbooks.

In the perspective of Table there were during this period “differences that are very significant in people’s lives”, but “the PS lacked political will” for a strategy that would transform “household, wages and living conditions”.

With regard to the future, Louçã removes the return to any public office, without any regret because, in the last legislative elections, he again headed a list of Members by BE, which justifies with “very exceptional circumstances”.

“ It was a period of strong retreat from the left, of great advance from the far right, of great disaggregation from the right. I can still be surprised by the way Passos Coelhos 'ventured', criticizes.

As for the current economic situation, the professor believes that the PRR was “a missed opportunity” because “it does not focus sufficiently on objectives or choose certain goals”.

“ They are clientele or sectorial distributions of funding to recover some sectors or some companies or to fulfill delayed infrastructure objectives with extraordinary deficits ", regrets.

Louçã points out a “capitalism of authoritarian liberalism” and, on the Portuguese case, states that as “the opportunities for accumulation and distribution are reduced”, political power tends to become “more authoritarian to ensure that they are concentrated in the hands of those closest to them”, forming “political and economic gangs around power”.

After 30 years as a teacher, the former bloquist coordinator assures that he never took politics to classes and taught several theories with which he was deeply at odds,

“In science we must have an opening of plurality of opinions that cannot be contaminated or restricted by any political vision. I never told them about any political activity, I never invited any student to any political activity, it was inconceivable, it makes no sense. It is necessary to respect them, they cannot be instrumentalized ", says.