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Pressure to the end. While the decisive meeting of the National Table of the Left Bloc was taking place, in which the electoral orientation of the party and the advancement of the State Budgets for 2021 were discussed, as well as the Government Tried pushing with more last minute arguments.. In a note sent to the party with which it had been negotiating the Budget since July, the Socialist Executive outlined a series of arguments and swore that there was a way to do it with the partner; At the same time, however, he took advantage of the note to counteract each of the arguments that the Bloc aligned to vote against the State Budget proposal presented by the Government on October 12. The political and rhetorical warfare will heat up.
War that was already foreseen in the intervention carried out this Sunday by the coordinator of the Left Bloc. In the statement that announced the vote against, Catarina Martins admitted that “throughout the negotiations, there was progress”, guaranteeing: “We will not play no blame game”. But these have been running around for several days, behind the scenes of the negotiations and will continue.
Not document sent by the Government to and to which the Observer had access – you can consult in its entirety here – the sum of the left is thrown as the final tab, which, since 2015, has allowed the austerity to be reversed, according to the Executive. “Between 2015 and 2019, the left-wing parliamentary majority came together to show that there was an alternative to this vision of austerity. An alternative that is committed to the recovery of the economy, the income of the Portuguese and the restoration of their confidence. An alternative that turned out to be a success widely recognized by the Portuguese ”, states in the note. Document that did not convince the Left Bloc, which ended Sunday’s party meeting by announcing that it was going to vote against the Government Budgets, the first time it has done so since António Costa is Prime Minister.
In such a decisive effort, the Government recovered the legacy of the ‘contraption’ to call the Bloc to its side. “As in 2015, we are ready to set out together again on a path to recover the economy and improve the lives of the Portuguese. We have already shown that we can do it. ” And I closed the note to make sure I was available to “continue talking” and “to clarify these and other issues as much as possible”.
He did not convince Catarina Martins, who, despite the vote against, that same night would leave a hole open. At 8:30 p.m., the BE leader said that the vote was against the generality and that in the specialty, it will soon be seen. “We have not decided not to vote without evaluating whether or not there are conditions for the negotiation,” he sent when asked if the vote would be repeated in the final vote, on November 18.
The white flag was flown. But the English seem to see, given the cannon shots that both parties have shot up. In the last two days, the Left Bloc circulated various information on the latest responses from the Government in this negotiation, always with associated criticism, indicating that it was going to radicalize the position. The PS, for its part, entered into a kind of permanent fact-checking on the bloc’s accusations, suggesting that Catarina Martins’ party lacked the truth.
The Block began by publishing, on the official website, that the “Government did not use the 4.5 billion with the Supplementary Budget ”. In the note sent to the party, the Government accuses the Block of “comparing the maximum limits of authorized spending with a forecast of actual execution for the current year” and that “the execution of spending must be below the authorized limit.” . And he maintains that, comparing the initial forecast for 2020 and the current one, there is a an increase of 4,620 million euros.
When BE points out that “the OE 2021 assigns less resources to the SNS than those foreseen in the Supplementary Budget for 2020”, the PS responds in this last minute note that “the increase in transfers from the OE to the SNS since 2016 was equal to 2,555 million euros, an increase of 32.4% (much higher than the rest of the Central Administration) ”.
In another comment, the blockers have denounced that the Government “promised by 2021 twice as many contracts as it will do this year”, but the amount available “is lower than what was done in OE 2020.” Here, the government even admits that the transfer is not double, but also underlines that the commitment with the partners was “a very high number of health professionals in 2021”. And what seems to be budgeted for next year is an increase “equivalent to 2020 and not double.” It allows in a space of 2 years, reaching double the number of hires this year“, Stressed the Socialist Executive.
And on investment in the NHS, given BE’s many complaints about the lack of 180 million euros“Due to the internalization of responses in complementary means of diagnosis and therapy in public health institutions and services, the Government argued with the budget execution of September. And he guaranteed that “investment in the NHS is increasing 119% (compared to the same period of the previous year) reaching 187 million euros, which already exceeds last year’s total of 156 million euros and is the highest value in the last decade ”.
The two sides of the barricade present, along with their arguments, a series of graphics. For example, and in terms of health contracting, the Block presents the evolution of the value of personnel expenses, which it says falls from € 402 million to € 301 million between this year and next. The Government, for its part, reports the gains in terms of human resources, underlining that, since 2015, there have been more than 22 thousand health professionals in the NHS. And as for personnel expenses, he presents the figures up to 2020 to affirm that they have risen 34% since 2015.
THE new social support it also motivated – and will motivate – the exchange of accusations. The Bloc also complained on Saturday that in the last reply it had received from the Government it had decided to maintain “the condition of resources for the access of independent workers to the new support.” In the note sent to the party, the Government summarized its reading of the negotiations to ensure that “it was still available for to evaluate the scope of this provision, i.e. with respect to consider the members of the statutory bodies and also cover, without applying the condition of resources, the self-employed or the members of the statutory bodies whose activity is prohibited by order of the Government or the competent health authority ”.
BE reports that “in 2020, there were 165 thousand independent workers who received extraordinary support, and 30 thousand members of statutory bodies.” Now, he is waiting to see if these proposals will enter the budget debate in the specialty. For now, the blockers do not rule out that he may change his vote between now and the final global vote. It depends on what happens in this month and a half of new negotiations, at the parliamentary level. At least that’s what Catarina Martins said:
We will see carefully how the proposals are voted in parliament, in the specialty debate. But we are clear about it: we do not accept a Budget that does not comply with the social emergency in which we live ”.
If, behind the scenes, the socialist government still exchanged arguments about this private letter, trying to convince the other party, publicly, the PS advanced with the parliamentary cavalry, through its group of deputies, but with a combat tom very different. Other parties can even “choose their vote” but “cannot ignore the facts,” the parliamentary group wrote on Facebook, hours before the definition of the blocking vote was known. The Block was, of course, the target.
