IL starts journeys focused on reforming the country against “majority of stalls”

In statements to Lusa, the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Initiative (IL), Mário Amorim Lopes, anticipated that these days will serve the party “focusing the country on what really matters, reforms”, considering that these are necessary because they are “the only way to get the country to grow more” and can get closer to other European countries.

For the Member, “the country is not ungovernable at the moment, the country is irreformable”, because he added, “there are a majority of stalls that do not want the country to change”.

“Some people because they think the country doesn’t need to change, it’s okay. Others say they'll change, but we'll see. And others because the only thing they want to do is protest and therefore are not very interested in getting the country better”, he argued.

Mário Amorim Lopes argued that in Portugal, “all areas need” reforms, but that the party’s days will focus on taxation, health and state reform, also addressing areas such as Social Security and justice.

According to the program, the opening of the days, at 11:00, will be the responsibility of Mário Amorim Lopes, following, in the morning, a panel on the reform of the state with the deputy portuense and former leader of the party Carlos Guimarães Pinto and economist Ricardo Arroja, who was IL candidate, as an independent, in the European elections of 2019.

On the reform of the state, the deputy defined as priority the debureaucratization and deregulation to “make life easier for the Portuguese”, reducing “documentation, paperwork, licensing and restrictions”.

“ We are always changing the government, what we do not do is change the state”, he criticized, recalling that the reform of the state was announced by the executive about two years ago, with a ministry of his own, and supporting that “it has not yet been seen”.

This Monday, the IL has also scheduled for the end of the afternoon of the first day a visit to the Hospital São João de Deus, in Famalicão, in the framework of the day of the National Health Service, which is 47 years old, and it is expected that the party president, Mariana Leitão, will speak to journalists at this point of work.

The second and last day of the days begins with a panel on tax reform, at 09:30, in which will participate Mário Amorim Lopes and economists Pedro Joga, leader of the party's list by the circle of Coimbra, as an independent, in the laws of 2024, and Luís Aguiar-Conraria, economic consultant of the President of the Republic, António José Seguro.

According to the liberal parliamentary leader, the country must, instead of discussing specific tax reductions, debate “how the tax system should be set up” to allow the Portuguese to pay less taxes, improve the use of public resources and attract more investment.

Despite the proximity of the discussion of the State Budget, Mário Amorim Lopes said that this will not be the focus of the journeys and said that IL still does not have a closed position on the document, except that the party will require a reduction of the tax burden if the sustainability of public accounts is ensured.

The works in the city Invicta close with an intervention by Mariana Leitão at 11:30.

These are the first parliamentary days of IL with Mariana Leitão as president of the Liberals and also the first since the last legislative elections, in May 2025, when the party elected nine deputies, plus one against the eight deputies of the previous legislature. The latter took place in Parliament in 2024, still with Rui Rocha as party leader.