Parish councils become ‘hot electoral topic’
And here we have another ‘hot electoral topic’, guaranteed to throw parliamentarians at each other’s throats as all parties focus on gaining as much ground as possible in the looming municipal elections:
PS Socialists have said today they will “immediately” re-agender the decree on dismantling ‘unions of parish councils’ (made in 2013 in order to save public money), in order to reconfirm their vote in the affirmative.
The decision was transmitted to journalists this morning by vice-president of the PS parliamentary bench Marina Gonçalves, suggesting she has no truck with president Marcelo’s sentence that “it is up to parliament, if it so deems fit, to reaffirm its will” but in doing so it needs to show the Portuguese people that this was not done for “circumstantial reasons or conveniences”, but rather as a result of long and calm consideration – which clearly has not happened (as the news of the presidential veto came less than 24-hours ago).
Marina Gonçalves’ justification for the very quick reaction snubbing the presidential veto, is that this is a “process that has gone through all the legal channels, in a very transparent way, and been worked on, with a great deal of rigour, by a parliamentary working group and committee”.
The reality nonetheless is that it is a process that will cost the country another €30 million in public sector expenses every year – at a time when all member states are being suddenly confronted with the need to increase spending on defence “or start taking lessons in Russian”.
