Lisbon, Sept. 30, 2024 (Lusa) - The Cabinet office minister said on Monday that since the extinction of the expression of interest, applications for immigrant residency in Portugal have fallen by around 80%, accusing the left of "still not having realised what a mistake" they made.

António Leitão Amaro was speaking at the PSD/CDS-PP parliamentary conference, on a panel entitled "Sovereign Portugal", in which he defended the thesis that the Democratic Alliance coalition government "is the only political force" that governs for all Portuguese people, in various areas.

In the area of immigration - a day after a protest organised by the right-wing Chega Party that brought together thousands of people in Lisbon - the minister argued that it is "possible to do things differently" from the previous Socialist Party (PS) government.

"We don't need to divide people between good and bad, our own and strangers, Portuguese and foreigners. And here too, this government is proposing a different path for the country from all the other political forces. On our left, they still haven't realised the mistake they made when for years, four years, they turned Portugal into a country with its doors wide open. And they still haven't realised the result of what they did," he criticised.

Leitão Amaro argued that the government is seeking to implement "a moderate alternative", aware that "Portugal needs immigrant workers and needs those who may truly be fleeing situations of humanitarian aggression".

"At the same time, we needed to close some of the wide-open door measures and so we made the most difficult decision straight away, just a few weeks into the job, which was to close that gigantic gate called the expression of interest. To give you an idea, since we took that decision, the reduction in the number of applications for residence has been in the region of 80%," he said.

The expression of interest refers to the previous Socialist government system whereby immigrants could enter the country on a tourist visa and once in Portugal could apply for residence by expressing an interest of seeking employment.

Leitão Amaro never referred directly to the state budget negotiations for 2025, but he reiterated a thesis that he had already expressed at the end of a Cabinet meeting, that the PSD/CDS-PP government had found a different way to achieve a balanced budget from the "wrong recipe" of the PS executives, which he called a "virtuous balance".

"We showed that it was possible to turn a page after all (...) to lower taxes, raise the salaries of civil servants, bring public investment to record levels and still achieve a budget surplus," he said.

The Cabinet office minister implicitly criticised the left and the right, arguing that Democratic Alliance (the pre-election coalition formed by the PSD and CDS-PP) is the "only political force that speaks for all the people and decides for all the people".

"Next to us, on either side, we see parties only focussed on part of the Portuguese, perhaps preoccupied with other calculations," he said The minister gave examples in the area of health, education and housing of the PSD/CDS-PP executive's concern for the public and private sectors, and also alluded to the concern for a new model for the youth IRS, planned by the government, but which the PS refuses in order to make the next state budget viable.

"We are not and will not be a party that only wants to please a certain age group of the Portuguese because it thinks it has electoral favouritism. Everyone counts for us," he said.

On the same panel, the minister for justice, Rita Alarcão Júdice, argued that the reform of this sector must first be done with citizens in mind and reiterated some commitments, such as presenting a draft bill to amend the law on entry to the judiciary ‘very soon’.

"Having good judges is one of the best reforms we can make in justice," she said.

The minister also committed herself to reviewing the fee scale of the access to law system, saying that the working group set up for this purpose will deliver its report today and that a meeting with the leader of the Bar Association has been scheduled for 9 October, ‘as planned since August’.

SMA/AYLS // AYLS

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