Hours after the Government approved measures to support housing in the Council of Ministers, the President of the Republic reiterated that the Executive’s decree-laws that are urgent “will be enacted urgently”.
Speaking to journalists this Thursday, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said that the program’s first diplomas More Housing that are delivered by the executive at the Palace of Belém must be “the most urgent”. “And that justified the Government having moved forward with them to enter into force as quickly as possible and produce effects in the lives of many Portuguese”, he continued.
Marcelo also assured that these decree-laws, which intend to support families in paying their rent and housing loans,“naturally they will have urgent treatment”.
Regarding the new rise in interest rates in the euro zone by the European Central Bank announced this Thursday, the President admitted that “the economic situation at the moment is a little worrying” throughout the world “and with an echo in Europe”, considering that we may be facing an aggravation of the crisis.
For the President, “we cannot be insensitive to what happened to North American banking entities”, that is, the bankruptcy of the SVB bank, nor to the “repercussions on banks on the European continent and on European stock markets” or the news of the increase in inflation in the United States of America which, he maintains, “probably” will mean a “continuation of the policy of very steep interest rate hikes”.
“All in all, let’s hope not, but it could make getting out of the crisis and recovering economies more difficult,” he declared, adding that these unexpected signs “are not good” and that the rise in inflation in the US, combined with “hesitations in exchanges and international financial institutions” in wartime [na Ucrânia] and high inflation, “is not good”.
It does not “facilitate the task of Governments” and can “mean the persistence of crisis factors”, he stressed, recalling that in the past there were guarantees that the “solutions found for certain crises were solid”, which, afterwards, did not happen .
Questioned about the coming of the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, to Portugal and the possibility that the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced that he would speak at the April 25 ceremony in Parliament, Marcelo contradicted the position of the right, stating that he did not understand “there were doubts that a head of state of a country born of a decolonization (…) allowed by the 25th of April, could participate intervening in the ceremony of the 25th of April”.
“I think it makes sense”, he declared, even assuming that it is the “most natural thing in the world”. And he recalled that whoever comes to Portugal is not the “politician representing a political sector”, but the President elected by Brazilians, who must be treated “in the same way that we understand that we should treat heads of State of Portuguese-speaking countries and countries democratic”.
The President spoke on the sidelines of the inauguration of the exhibition dedicated to Amílcar Cabral, at Palácio Baldaya in Lisbon, promoted by the Commemorative Commission 50 years of the 25th of April. Earlier, during the visit, the head of state regretted that there are “sectors of Portuguese social and political life that do not understand that decolonization is inseparable from the 25th of April” and that raise “doubts about the presence and about their intervention within the framework of the 25 de Abril”, referring to the PSD, Iniciativa Liberal and Chega who opposed Lula da Silva’s speech in Parliament.
“There is something strange when only one hemisphere of Portuguese political life considers this natural. It should be the two hemispheres of Portuguese political life”, he defended, accusing the right of having “difficulty in understanding the fullness of the 25th of April”. “I’m surprised by that,” he added.
Instead of an intervention by the President of Brazil in the solemn annual commemorative session of the 25th of April, Parliament decided to hold a separate welcome session during Lula da Silva’s State visit to Portugal, also with the opposition of the He arrives.