OE2025: “National interest is more important than the Government’s program”, says President of the Republic
“The Government, attentive to the national interest, must realize that the national interest is more important than the Government’s program and not be inflexible”, said this Saturday Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in statements broadcast by RTP, one day after the meeting between the prime minister and the secretary general of the PS on the State Budget for 2025.
The head of state stressed that, “especially in a minority Government”, such as the PSD/CDS-PP executive led by Luís Montenegro, “the Government’s program must become flexible”, extending the advice to the opposition leader who, advised , “you have to make an effort in relation to the principles that would be ideal”.
“If they don’t make an effort, is the responsibility for whoever breaks the tie? For the third party, it’s the third party who will break the tie, if the first and second don’t understand each other”, he stated, in a reference to Chega.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also added that “if this third party decides not to decide”, then the responsibility “rests with the President”.
“Now, the last thing that should happen is this, it is essential that it was in parliament, that it was at the initiative of the main political forces”, he said.
The President of the Republic’s statements come one day after the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, and the Secretary General of the PS, Pedro Nuno Santos, met for the first time to negotiate the State Budget for 2025, in a meeting that ended with apparently distant positions but without breaking the negotiation process.
After the end of the meeting, the PS secretary general stated that he refuses a State Budget with the changes to the IRS Jovem and IRC proposed by the Government or any modeling of these measures.
Shortly afterwards, Luís Montenegro classified Pedro Nuno Santos’ proposal as “radical and inflexible”, but promised that, next week, he would present a counter-proposal to the socialists in an “attempt to bring positions closer together”.
Chega’s president, André Ventura, considered that Pedro Nuno Santos presented the Prime Minister with unacceptable budgetary proposals for any center-right Government and said that he will avoid the political impasse if the socialists are removed and the executive builds another Budget.
The State Budget for 2025 must be delivered to the Assembly of the Republic by October 10 and approval is still uncertain, as the PSD and CDS-PP have a total of 80 deputies, insufficient to guarantee the document’s viability.
In practice, only the abstention of the PS or the vote in favor of Chega guarantees the approval of OE2025.
