Housing: Free charges Government of insensitivity and intransigence

O Free accused the government today of insensitivity and intransigence and indicated that, despite not wanting to drop the review of the lease law, it showed openness to discuss measures for the cooperative sector and in relation to the IMI.

“The government does not know the country that it has and does not understand the country that it has and the situation that the country is in,” accused the MP leader of the Free, stating that the Government has expressed “absolute unavailability” to withdraw the proposed amendment to the law from the rents but is available to change it.

Isabel Mendes Lopes spoke to journalists in Parliament at the end of a meeting with the Ministers for Infrastructure and Housing, Miguel Pinto Luz, the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, and Parliamentary Affairs, Carlos Abreu Amorim.

The spokesperson for the Free said that one of the conditions that the Party put to dialogue with the Government on housing matters was “that the rent law should fall”, because “it is cruel and has no basis for working in Parliament”.

Isabel Mendes Lopes considered that it would also be “a political signal that the government itself gave to the country at this time of great social unrest and great indignation”.

“ But in this issue the government continues to maintain that it must keep on the table the rent law and, therefore, we realize that there is this lack of sensitivity in relation to the way the country saw this presentation and the way the government has managed the issue of housing”, he accused.

According to the Free Member, the government also did not accept the “reversion of tax benefits to those who practice so-called moderate income” up to EUR 2,300.

The leader of the Free considered that “it is difficult” to work on the basis of the proposal of the rental law, because it is a legislative authorisation, and argued that extraordinary and consensual measures are needed.

Isabel Mendes Lopes defended “enlarged understandings in Parliament” and said that it is a “wrong policy” the government “supporting the Enough to move the housing market”.

“ What we need now is to look for solutions that are consensual. This has not been what the government has done, it has come with great arrogance, with great intransigence with the presentation of proposals and it has not realized the moment we are living, and it is not just a question of dialogue in Parliament, it is the question of dialogue with the country that needs to be done, and the country is asking the government to address housing issues from another point of view, and that is very clear, but the government is not able to hear”, he criticized.

The Livre also led to this meeting more support for housing cooperatives, including “conditions for financing, lending land or lending real estate, so that the cooperative sector can also contribute to the housing market outside the speculative sector”.

The Party insists on other measures, such as incentives for the placing of empty houses on the market and the making available of State assets for housing, for new enterprises to have a percentage of affordable housing, for the creation of a “national housing service”, for the extension of Port 65 or for the creation of function houses.

Isabel Mendes Lopes indicated that some of these proposals will already be brought to the discussion in the State Budget specialty for next year, while others will be presented further.

The MP of Livre indicated that there was an opening of the Government regarding the support to the cooperative sector and the “IMI farming in the case of vacant buildings and empty houses”, a discussion that would be made “more ahead”.

Mendes Lopes also considered that the President of the Republic “has an important role in using his influence so that the country can find solutions to the housing problem” and called on the government to show “greater capacity for dialogue” and “backwards”.