Government says it will engage in dialogue with all parties

The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Carlos Abreu Amorim, assured today that the Government will engage in dialogue with all parties and seek consensus to carry out the measures set out in its programme.

Speaking to journalists after delivering the XXV Constitutional Government’s program, the minister indicated that the objective of this executive is to “transform the country in the next four years”.

“We can only do this, as is evident, given the current parliamentary configuration, with all the other parliamentary groups. We will seek consensus, we will establish dialogue with everyone,” he said.

Carlos Abreu Amorim indicated that this “is a program for all Portuguese people and that, preferably, it will have to be carried out and executed according to the ideas of those who, in some way, manage to find consensus in its true definition, which is to find common points among several divergent points”.

The minister argued, however, that “consensus is not unanimity, they are different concepts”.

Asked whether the Government will engage in dialogue with Chega on some matters and with the PS on others, the minister responded that “it will be with everyone, with everyone, with everyone”, quoting Pope Francis.

Regarding the motion to reject the programme announced by the PCP, Carlos Abreu Amorim pointed out that it will be “a first phase of parliamentary scrutiny and a debate where all the main ideas of this programme can be duly defined by the Government”, with the opposition parties being responsible for doing “what is constitutionally their responsibility in a democracy, which is to scrutinise the Government, ask for clarification and then pronounce themselves”.

“Since there is this motion of rejection that was pre-announced by the PCP, the other parliamentary forces will also have to take responsibility for what, in fact, they have already said and that we believe will be achieved, which is the stability that the Portuguese want, that the Portuguese desire so that the transformative agenda can be achieved”, he argued.

The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs handed over the Government Program this morning to the first vice-president of parliament, the social democrat Teresa Morais, in the visiting room of the president of the Assembly, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco.

The AD coalition (PSD/CDS-PP) won the legislative elections without an absolute majority, electing 91 deputies out of 230, of which 89 are from the PSD and two from the CDS-PP.

Chega became the second largest parliamentary force, with 60 deputies, followed by the PS, with 58, the IL, with nine, the Livre, with six, the PCP, with three, and BE, PAN and JPP, with one each.

Luís Montenegro has been Prime Minister since April 2nd of last year, after an eight-year cycle of PS governance.