The PSD president said this Friday that he felt “great frustration” with the Government’s measures to respond to the housing crisis, which he considered to reveal “a prime minister in his face as a survivor and a communist”.
Speaking to journalists on the subject, in Pinhel, in the district of Guarda, Luís Montenegro admitted that he had little expectation regarding the measures because the package “was presented after seven years of complete inaction by the Government and Dr António Costa in the field of housing, despite many papers, many projects of intentions”.
The Social Democrat leader was speaking on the sidelines of the inauguration of the 28th Traditions and Economic Activities Fair, promoted by the city council to attract visitors and promote local products over the Carnival weekend.
In the first place, Montenegro said he feared that the executive’s program “is yet another project that does not get off the ground and that does not solve any of the problems that affect the Portuguese in terms of housing”, claiming that “it reveals an António Costa and a first -minister in his face as a survivor and a communist”.
“Survivor, because whenever he has a problem, he tries to invent, like that, from one moment to the next, solutions that are not well considered, that are not asleep and that are not realistic. Communist, because this is the António Costa version close to what, unfortunately, was the brand in some public policies in recent years”, he argued.
The president of the PSD later expressed his criticism of the current executive’s policies: “Too much State, everything centralized in the State and not in a regime of complementarity with society, with the private sector, with cooperatives, in the case of housing. It is a statist vision which falls far short of those that were the principles and ideas that the PSD presented two days before the Government”.
Montenegro said that the PSD, once again, not only anticipated the Government but “has a much more ambitious and much more strategic project of revolution in the Portuguese housing market”. “What the Government does are measures that are not very ambitious, uncoordinated and disconnected, many times”, and with effects that “are very harmful”, he added.
As an example, he mentioned that putting an end to “visas gold” throughout the national territory “it is frustrating much of the investment capacity” in low-density areas and autonomous regions. of the measures “are negative”.
For Luís Montenegro, the Government “should look” at the PSD project, since the one he presented “is a proposal from a prime minister who wants to survive” and who “only thinks about the next day”. On the other hand, in relation to coercive leasing, he considered that the State “many times does not know what to do” with properties that have been vacant.
“The Prime Minister should tell the country what he is going to do with the thousands of vacant properties that he could take advantage of in coordination with city councils, for example, and even with private investors. He does not. He wants to force private investors to having a purpose for their investments, meddling in the functioning of the free market and, in my point of view, going too far”, he assumed.
“Good intentions”, says Paulo Raimundo
The secretary general of the PCP, Paulo Raimundo, defended this Friday that the government’s package of measures for housing “does not solve” the problems of the Portuguese in the present, despite the “good intentions” for the future.
“We can say that there is a set of, eventually, good intentions for the future, but from the point of view of the present, of tomorrow, it does not solve any of the problems we are facing”, the communist leader told journalists, on the sidelines. of the action “More strength to workers”, in Albufeira, which involved hotel workers in the Algarve.
Asked whether he considers that the measures provided for in the Mais Habitação program are sufficient to resolve the housing crisis, Paulo Raimundo replied that they are not, regretting that the package practically does not address the issue of rising mortgage loan installments.
“I don’t think so, because the Government has chosen not to face any of the problems we are facing. And, from the outset, with a central problem, I would say. It is an action plan looking to the future, that is important, have a plan for the future, but problems arise every day”, he said.
On the increase in installments on housing credits, and its consequences on the standard of living of the Portuguese, the secretary general of the PCP considered that the Government’s response was “far short” of needs. “In my opinion, even the lease issues, everything that is central, namely in the law of evictions, in the law of the” troika “, of the Cristas law, also did not change anything from that point of view”, he concluded.