The working group to reform the Regulations of the Assembly of the Republic expects that, “ideally“, the new rules will be put to a vote in plenary on October 21, but admits that this process will last until the 27th.
This information was transmitted to the Lusa agency by PS deputy Pedro Delgado Alves, after a meeting to schedule the working group to modify the Regulations of the Assembly of the Republic, which he chairs.
At this meeting, it was agreed that the working group meet again on October 6, in the post-plenary, so that the issues agreed upon by the parties are “it’s already closed“.
The next day, on October 7, the computer division of the Assembly of the Republic will learn about the proposals of some parties to considerably increase the number of electronic votes in parliament and evaluate their technical feasibility.
Then, on October 11, the deputies are expected to start “of stone“, with a whole afternoon reserved for “deeper work, for light discussions and votes if necessary”. On the 12th, there would still be time to discuss “residual issues”.
According to Pedro Delgado Alves, this schedule would allow the reforms to the Regulations of the Assembly of the Republic to be put to a vote in the first commission on October 19, and then go to the plenary session on October 21.
Nevertheless, “on the brink of limitsPedro Delgado Alves also admitted that these changes will only go to plenary on October 27, coinciding with the vote on the State Budget proposal in general.
The socialist deputy has said that, when the State Budget calendar was approved, it was defined that the voting guide for October 27 will have “other votes beyond” the budget proposal.
“The script of 27 [de outubro] will still have votes, which means that, [se o processo de alterações ao Regimento] we have to slip a little, it is not an impediment so that we can close the work before the Budget”, he said.
On September 8, the socialist deputy had told the Portuguese agency that the changes should be voted on in the plenary session on October 14.
Before the parliamentary holidays, the deputies had expressed the ambition that the reforms to the Regulation could be voted on in the first plenary session, on September 14, but the multiplication of parliamentary sessions and other working groups made that objective unfeasible.
Even that date had already resulted from a request for postponement by the PSD, which had the favorable vote of the PS, so that the conclusion of the works was postponed to September. initially planned to finish in time for the vote in the last plenary before the holidayson July 21.
This request was approved on July 15 with votes in favor of PSD and PS, against Chega and abstention of IL, BE, PCP, Livre and PAN.
This process of reviewing the Regulations has as its central point the review of the models of parliamentary debates with the President of the Government, with proposals from all the benches, the majority to re-establish the fortnightly discussions that ended in 2020 by agreement between PS and PSD.
With the exception of PS and PCP, all other parties, including the PSD, present proposals to replace biweekly debates with the Prime Minister.
In the current model, discussions with the government take place monthly and the prime minister is only required to appear before deputies once every two months.
In its diploma, the PS proposes holding monthly debates with the President of the Government, as was done between 1996 and 2007, and that the Government be present fortnightly in the plenary session of the Assembly of the Republic.
The Socialists also intend to put an end to the current model of questions and answers in the debates with the President of the Government, establishing that “at the end of the intervention period of each party, the Government’s response is immediately followed”, a change that the PSD questions.
The PCP wants the Prime Minister to appear for debate in plenary session once a month and each minister at least once per legislative session, but it has already announced that “it will vote in favor of the proposals to replace the fortnightly discussions with the prime minister“.
Source: Observadora
