Alleged Government-Chega agreement: Liberal Initiative met with Montenegro in July, did not discuss budget or “any agreement”
The president of the Liberal Initiative revealed today, in Leiria, that he met with the prime minister, on July 15th, as part of “absolutely normal meetings and without there being any agreement”.
“It was a meeting more focused on general issues of the country, on issues that concern the lives of the Portuguese. They are normal meetings, absolutely common and without there being any agreement or any commitment”, stated Rui Rocha, after the Leiria Mais Liberal Conference .
The IL leader highlighted that “these meetings are not secret, but they are not public either”, but decided to talk about this specific one for “the benefit of enlightening the Portuguese”, as the case “has become a topic in the last few hours” with the exchange of accusations between the prime minister and the president of Chega.
Noting that the meeting took place at the official residence of the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, the IL leader highlighted that “it was not even a meeting in which the budget issues were discussed in depth”, as the matter would be debated at the end of that week among the teams of the IL and the Government.
Rui Rocha also guaranteed that “there was no evidence” that Montenegro intended an agreement on the right. “There was evidence of an open, frank discussion about the future of the country.”
Without revealing to journalists who is lying: André Ventura, from Chega, or the prime minister, Rui Rocha lamented the “time that is being involved in these discussions, which puts into question the attention that should be given to fundamental problems”, as the country “is experiencing a politically, economically and socially complicated situation”.
Addressing the leader of Chega, the president of IL asked: “What are André Ventura’s proposals for this budget? It’s just that we know several positions, this whole soap opera, the interpretations, but what about proposals? So far I’ve seen a letter that was written, interestingly enough, after some of these facts and narratives, which has the sole objective of increasing public spending”, he said.
Rui Rocha reaffirmed that the budget presented by the Government of the Democratic Alliance is bad, so IL “is not in a position to vote in favor”, as “it will cause another year of delay in the Portuguese economic and social situation”.
“This is not a good budget for Portugal. This is a bad budget for the country, but it is bad because it is close to the PS. What else will Pedro Nuno Santos invent to not make it viable?”, since the red lines have been attenuated.
If the points of divergence of Pedro Nuno Santos, secretary general of the PS, is “the 1% in IRC, the enormous problem of relieving so slightly the companies that are the entities that bring wealth to the country and the ability to attract foreign investment , it seems very weak to me.”
Rui Rocha left the announcement of IL’s voting direction in the State Budget until after listening to party bodies, stressing, however, that he is not afraid of elections.
“Between a bad budget that prolongs for another year an economy situation that grows very little, in fact, well below the AD’s electoral promises or a clarification in elections, I don’t understand that it is a problem for us to go to elections at this moment”, he reinforced, by pointing out that the Government has become so close to the PS, that there is “a government with a socialist brand”.
On Thursday in an interview with TVI/CNN Portugal, André Ventura said that the Prime Minister had privately proposed to him an agreement with a view to approving the State Budget for next year, which admitted he could be part of the Government.
“The prime minister lied”, accused the Chega leader, noting that on Tuesday Luís Montenegro “said that Chega was not a reliable partner, that he never counted on Chega and that Chega was removed from the negotiations”.
Shortly afterwards, through a message published on the social network X (formerly Twitter), the prime minister assured that “the Government never proposed an agreement to Chega”, and accused André Ventura of lying.
