Luís Marques Mendes is confident that the State Budget will be approved, but he puts pressure on the two main parties. The former leader of the PSD and political commentator said this Monday on Rádio Observador that “from now on everyone would look bad in the photo if a final agreement is not reached.” For Marques Mendes, a no-deal is as bad for Pedro Nuno Santos as it is for Luís Montenegro, since “no one in the country would notice a crisis if it reached this point.”
Listen to the full interview with Luís Marques Mendes here
Luís Marques Mendes: “For the PS enabling “Marcelo” was better”
Marques Mendes believes, however, that the leaders of the PS and PSD “are rational people” and that, therefore, “they will find a way out.” The political commentator, who participated in a special Explainer program about difficult budgets in times of minority governments, says that at the moment he is “not worried at all.”
The former leader of the PSD remembers that “the big concessions were last week” and that they were made “mainly by the Government.” For the political commentator, the issues that must be resolved are “of political discourse” and have nothing to do precisely with the decision-making process itself. Marques Mendes leaves it up to the two leaders to find a solution to resolve the current situation with common sense: “The PS would inform the country that it would no longer support any additional reduction of the IRC. And the Government would declare that, within a year, it will think about the way forward. Or leave it; “Or continue moving forward, knowing that the PS is against it, or negotiate with another partner.”
[Já saiu o segundo episódio de “A Grande Provocadora”, o novo podcast Plus do Observador que conta a história de Vera Lagoa, a mulher que afrontou Salazar, desafiou os militares de Abril e ridicularizou os que se achavam donos do país. Pode ouvir aqui, no Observador, e também na Apple Podcasts, no Spotify e no Youtube. E pode ouvir aqui o primeiro episódio.]
Regarding the Budgets from 1997 to 1999, which Marcelo’s PSD made possible with the parliamentary leader in the opposition, Marques Mendes said that his role “was very small” and praised the position of the then PSD leader. The commentator says that Pedro Nuno Santos would have been better protected if he had done as Marcelo did in the 90s: “Make it viable without negotiating.”
Regarding the role of Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in the current State Budget, Marques Mendes says that “the President of the Republic has been very good in this matter” and exercised the “correct teaching influence, to bring the parties closer together.” The Councilor of State also affirms that the Council of State “will have contributed to bringing positions closer together”, in “a pressure that helped the Prime Minister to get closer to the PS and the leader of the PS to respond with another sense of responsibility.”
When asked if a military man (like Gouveia e Melo) would have more difficulties politically managing a budget crisis like this, Marques Mendes avoided the question: “I prefer to abstain.”
Source: Observadora
