Montenegro accuses Centennial of scaring the country with expense speech

O prime Minister today accused former socialist minister and former governor of Banco de Portugal Mário Centeno of being scaring the country by talking about an increase in expenditure, countering that primary current expenditure is controlled.

This reference to the former socialist Minister of Finance was made by Luís Montenegro at the end of the third round of questions which was raised in the first of two days of debate on the general government budget for 2027 in Parliament.

In this round of questions, no Member who spoke raised the question of an alleged lack of control of expenditure, but the Prime Minister, during his reply, attacked who is saying that this is the most expensive executive in the last decades.

“They didn’t say it was the devil, but they were close,” he said, before identifying the recipient of his message.

“ I'm talking about a current commentator who's had several responsibilities in recent years, from the government to senior officials in our administration. He has also tried to scare the country with this increase in expenditure,” he noted.

After the indirect reference to Mário Centeno, Luís Montenegro replied: “No, ladies and gentlemen, current primary expenditure as a percentage of our product is at an absolutely controlled level.”.

In this context, the executive leader assumed that his government “in fact spends a lot of money on investments”.

“ We spent on investments that we had to make with a concrete deadline, particularly in the RRP (Recovery and Resilience Plan). We also spent a lot of money helping the worst hit by storms, fires, extreme phenomena that were not foreseen. And we have also used the margin available each year to help people with IRS descents and to help people with pension increases,” the Prime Minister added.

Before, the deputies of the PS Luís Graça and Marina Gonçalves had criticized the government not because of an alleged increase in expenditure, but because, according to them, they did not have answers to the increase in the cost of living, leaving unprotected families who do not pay IRS for having few incomes. An issue that was also raised by Mrs Gonçalves, who demanded the return of VAT to low-income families.

Still on the part of the PS, Susana Correia and Sofia Andrade criticized the Government for having “failed promises” in relation to improvements in the National Health Service, pointing out, in contrast, increasingly negative indicators, in case, in particular, of cancer patients.

Rui Afonso wanted to know if the government is available to give, in the debate on the special budget, VAT on fuels. I really wanted to clarify whether the executive admits a drop in VAT on the food basket.

Congresswoman Vanessa Barata argued that the streets of the country are only safe because of police action. But the government, in its opinion, “only gives crumbs to the police in this budget”.

Also for the Enough, Mr Rodrigo Tax considered that Luís Montenegro has much to learn from André Ventura as regards taxation and accused the Government of “not doing a single reform at the level of the judicial system”.

The Government was defended in the speeches of MEPs from the PSD Carlos Cação sobre ambiente, Leonor Cipriano on pension policy and Carolina Marques on school social action.