Former minister Miguel Cadilhe defended this Wednesday that Portugal “very much needs” a “Movement for the Interior II”, but “with more voice” than the first, which he considered “closed for balance” without his proposals being accepted.
Speaking at the presentation of Luís Braga da Cruz’s book “Chronicles on the Duero… and other topics”, which took place at the end of the afternoon, in Porto, the former head of the Public Finance portfolio of Cavaco Silva criticized the President of the Government and the President of the Republic for not having welcomed the more than 20 measures in defense of the interior that this civil society movement presented in 2018.
Miguel Cadilhe, who once again became a defender of regionalization, considered that the Public investment priorities in Portugal are “priorities of centralism”arguing that the centralism was the cause of the troika’s intervention in 2011.
I think I can say that there is room for civil society to reopen this, to reappear with another Movement for the Interior, let’s say, a movement II, a legacy of the ideas of 2018, which is something of a new generation (… ) maybe something more demanding, with a stronger voice and that the voices or the nuts are not donated to those who take Movement II because the country really needs a Movement for the Interior”, he defended.
The need for a new generation of this movement, which was “closed by equilibrium”, is explained in the Failure to comply with the measures presented to the heads of the sovereign bodies at the time, the President of the Republic, the President of the Assembly of the Republic and the Prime Ministerthat he received the proposals of the movement “in his hand” in a ceremony “beautiful to behold” but that it was no more than that.
The Prime Minister, António Costa, gave a speech in which he said little about our proposals and our work. What he did was propaganda of what the government had already done and was going to do inside, very little. the president of the Republic [Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa]who had nurtured the Movement for the Interior, he is a very, very intelligent man, he kicked the bucket,” he described.
“The president of the Assembly of the Republic (Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues) was the only one who took the proposals, he said it there, in the speech, but he had no executive power and could do little,” he continued.
In a speech in which he recalled the path traveled by Luís Braga da Cruz in defense of regionalization and regional causes, Miguel Cadilhe pointed his finger at what he considered the centralism of the State in Portugal, citing as an example the public petition for the rehabilitation and modernization of the entire Duero Linepresented by the Liga dos Amigos do Douro World Heritage, in 2019.
It was a powerful moment for civil society. I have never seen something like this in Parliament (…) it was unanimously supported by all the parliamentary groups, each parliamentary group, from the extreme left to the right, made recommendations in favor of accepting the public request for the Duero Line, ”he recalled. the. .
However, he said, “it cannot be excluded, however, that the Duero Line is unfortunately subordinated to public investment priorities”, this because, he defended, Public investment priorities “in Portugal are, above all, priorities of centralism“.
The centralism he identified was, for Miguel Cadilhe, to blame for the need for the troika to intervene in Portugal in 2011.
“I also usually say that it was thanks, thanks in quotes, it was thanks to centralism, that Portugal fell into the collapse and disgrace of public finances due to excessive public spending in 2011 and fell into the arms without love, without love of the troika”, he considered.
Source: Observadora
