Piglet “satisfied” with words of Steps and asks Montenegro to listen to IL

Mariana Leitão spoke to journalists after a visit to the party's parliamentary days at the Hospital São João de Deus in Vila Nova de Famalicão, Braga district.

Asked about Pedro Passos Coelho’s opinion that the PSD/CDS-PP government is running out of time to make structural reforms, Leitão replied that he is “always very pleased when more people verbalize and insist and avenge this need for reform.”.

“It’s a need the country has. We are now focusing on these same reforms on these parliamentary days and there are some that are crucial and that we really want to carry out in this legislative session,” he added, listing as priority changes at tax level, Social Security, State apparatus and Justice.

The leader of the IL said she did not want to speculate on the words of Steps, focusing on her “political message”, considering that it is positive that more and more people join the appeal that her party has “always” that reforms are needed in the country.

Asked about whether the current Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, should listen more to the councils of Passos Coelho, the leader of IL considered that the head of the Government “hears whom he wants”, but who, above all, “must listen to the parties in the seat of the Assembly of the Republic, namely the Liberal Initiative, when they warn him that he is not doing what he promised the Portuguese”.

Mariana Leitão said there was “ability to talk” by the IL, but did not respond if the party intends to meet with the Government to present its proposals, stressing that its ambition is that the liberals’ appeals “be heard”.

The president of IL also did not respond on what points she sees more convergence with the PSD in order to facilitate the feasibility of its proposals.

“You’ll have to ask the PSD,” he said, adding that IL knows “what’s a priority for the country to function” and that other parties should be asked about how they converge with the liberals.