The Government meets this Monday in an extraordinary Council of Ministers to approve a package of measures to support family income that aims to respond to the current context of inflation and rising costs of living.
The start of the meeting is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. the package to be approved by the Executive should be around two billion eurosaccording to information published by some media.
Among the measures will be, according to the newspapers, the assignment of a check of 100 euros to families to help defray the increase in energy and food costs.
In addition to the recipients of minimum social benefits and the social energy rate —who were granted a 60-euro food basket this year—, middle-class households will also be eligible for this 100-euro check.
The beneficiaries of the social rate increase to 806,000 electricity and 54,000 gas in 2021
Another of the measures that could be on the table is the advance to retirees of part of the increase that was planned for next year, through the automatic updating of pensions, calculated based on the average annual growth of the GDP of the two last years. and inflation calculated in November of this year.
This week, during his official visit to Mozambique for the V Portuguese-Mozambican Summit, when questioned, the Prime Minister sent the communiqué of the measures for this Monday, stating that “strength comes from calm.”
Costa sends to Monday measures to deal with inflation because “strength comes from calm”
António Costa defended that “it is necessary to guarantee that both families and companies are capable of dealing with this situation”, underlining that, in relation to companies, only after the Council of Energy Ministers of the European Union scheduled for the 9th it will make sense to take action.
The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, said this weekend that the package of measures that the Government will present must be urgent, flexible and aimed at those most in need, but also at the middle class.
Marcelo defended a balance, considering that we must act urgently, but that the measures must be adjusted month by month.
Several European countries have already adopted measures to combat inflation and opposition parties have pressured António Costa to find solutions.
This package – initially announced by the prime minister in July, in the debate on the State of the Nation, in parliament – will be approved less than a week after the PSD has specified the measures of its social emergency program in the form of draft resolution, with a global value of 1,500 million euros.
PSD wants food stamps for pensioners, reduction of IRS and VAT on energy to 6%
The value is higher than that initially announced by the president of the PSD, Luís Montenegro, in the Pontal Party, in Faro, (which was one billion euros), a difference justified by the parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, with the “worse the situation of families and companies” and because the budget execution of July showed that “there is a very important additional income”.
Among the measures defended by the PSD is the reduction of energy VAT (fuels, electricity and gas) to the minimum rate (6%) or the allocation of a food voucher worth 40 euros per month to all pensioners and retirees who have pension/retirement of up to 1,108 euros and to all citizens in active life and who obtain income up to the third level of the IRS, during the same period.
Source: Observadora
