An agreed position. At a time when the PSD is preparing to formalize the transition of leadership, Social Democrats and Socialists have agreed and decided to postpone the discussion on a possible return of fortnightly debates with the presence of the Prime Minister. The request was made by the PSD and was given the green light by the Socialists, as they recognized that it was important to give Luís Montenegro and the new management an opportunity to discuss the issue.
The proposals for the new model of parliamentary debates – which will not necessarily be every 15 days, but which will surely be more frequent – should be received by this Monday. However, and after consulting the PS caucus, the Social Democrats decided to submit a request to postpone the discussion until after the new PSD leader was enthroned.
Initially, the PS intended to speed up this discussion in order to have an approved model in time for “the return of work [parlamentares] in September”, as the Socialist deputy Pedro Delgado Alves explained to the Observer, without finalizing, yes, a specific proposal.
Now, with this request from the PSD, there is no longer a defined calendar, knowing that any discussion will only take place from July 3, the date on which the congress that will enthrone Luís Montenegro as social democratic leader concludes. Given that Parliament closes for vacation on July 29, the deputies will have less than a month to agree on a new model of debates if they want to have it effectively ready in September.
With PS and PSD marking the hour, there are still some proposals on the table and all of them (Basta, IL and PAN) defend the return of debates with the Prime Minister in a fortnightly format.
It is recalled that the end of the fortnightly debates was an amendment agreed at the highest level —between António Costa and Rui Rio— in the last legislature. In 2020, these debates, which had existed since 2007, were replaced by bi-monthly debates with the prime minister on general policy.
The fact that Rio gave Costa a hand in this particular file provoked harsh external and, above all, internal criticism. In addition, Luís Montenegro was one of those who made himself heard the most in the attack on the still leader of the PSD, saying that it was an attack on democracy.
“If there is a government and a prime minister that needed to be examined, not every 15 days, but every day, this is it. Anything that diminishes that capacity for scrutiny is not good for democracy,” Montenegro criticized at the time. Once he takes office, he will have the opportunity to defend his own proposal for parliamentary debates.
Source: Observadora
