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It is the last chance in a negotiation process that has been done with ultimatums from both sides: the Left Bloc only accepts to make the State Budgets for 2021 viable if the Government commits itself politically, through a written document, to resolve the issues that the party considers fundamental (with the ban on layoffs and the solution for the New Bank at the helm, but also the design of the new social benefit and more doctors for the SNS). Otherwise, the vote is decided: it will be against. Neither the eventual discussion in the specialty will change that sense. If there is to be an agreement, it must be now, until October 28.
“If the Government wants, it will still be on time”a blocking source tells an observer. The idea is for the government to resume negotiations and address the claims of the blockade by giving public guarantees that can later become law during the OE discussion in the specialty, when the budget is open again and subject to improvements. It is the Left Block that stretches the rope to the maximum.
At the top of the bloc priorities are two issues: ban on layoffs in all for-profit and state-supported businesses, and prohibition of new capital injections in Novo Banco through the Resolution Fund (without having performed a new audit before). BE knows that, although there is nothing about Novo Banco in the budget proposal, it is in the budget statements where the spending authorizations will appear where a paragraph about the Resolution Fund should appear – if so, it means that “taxpayers will pay” , because the Resolution Fund works as a public guarantee. And this is a red line for BE.
In addition to these two files, which, according to BE, the Government insists on not responding (the most it has done in terms of dismissals has been to cut the tax benefits of the companies that dismiss and give “insignificant” compensation to those dismissed. of the first 120 business days), there are more measures that are hindering a deal: contracting of guarantees in Health (more doctors and better conditions), and the drawing of the famous social benefit for those who were left without income (or had a significant break) during the pandemic crisis. BE wants this benefit to cover more families and more self-employed, having verified that, as it is, the benefit is nothing more than “an extraordinary 6-month support”, which means that some workers are even receiving less than what they have been receiving in recent months to face the activity breakdown.
Catarina Martins had already made it very clear, this morning, in an interview with Antena 1, that, if the State Budget proposal remains as it is, the Esquerda Bloc cannot make it viable. But immediately afterwards, the bloc coordinator reinforced that it maintained “open door” and that the party continued to want to “negotiate” to have a good budget. But how? The idea, according to the Observer, is Give the government one more chance to meet the blockers., after Catarina Martins pointed out that, this time, unlike the others, the Government closed the door of negotiations “unilaterally” without an agreement. “He closed the document without concluding the negotiations,” he said. It is no longer possible to deal with the document, of course, but there is still a possible way to solve the problem.
Now, only if the Government agrees to resolve the issues that BE considers essential, the party will accept to make the Budget viable. Although, for that, this commitment is drawn up in a separate document, since the Budget proposal has to be delivered to the Assembly of the Republic this Monday at the end of the day and, from that moment, it cannot be modified until which was voted on October 28. This separate document will serve as a political agreement, which can then be presented “in the form of law” during the discussion of the Budget in the specialty. – where changes and improvements to the budget are already accepted.
The government tries a device only with the Block until 2023. But it does not resign from the PCP in this Budget
The idea of an extra-budgetary political commitment, with multi-year impact measures, is not new, and has been put on the table of the blockade negotiations, and even the Government is interested in guaranteeing BE’s support for more years until the end of the legislature. But now it is the Bloco de Esquerda that turns around: yes, I also agree on extra-budgetary issues, as is the case with labor legislation, but on the terms that BE wants. In other words, with more progress in the prohibition of layoffs, and with more guarantees that there are no more loans to Novo Banco through the Resolution Fund. Issues that may not even be included in the Budget, but that the Block says are essential for its viability. Either that or nothing.
