Upon returning from the coffee break, the conversation on stage is with António Leitão Amaro, Minister of the Presidency. “Work, state and housing” are the Government’s biggest challenges, the minister begins by saying. “The Portuguese need to feel that working is worth more than not working”, says the minister. He cited as a measure the reduction of the tax burden on work, with the reduction of the IRS, in this conversation mediated by director Filipe Alves.
In relation to the single social provision, it reflects that the objective is for people to evolve. “Living on social benefits does not have to be easy, it cannot be a trap into poverty, but rather a springboard”, he explains. The objective is to encourage people to work. Between “living on PSU or RSI” the person must think that “working is more worth it”, he summarizes.
The minister says that the country really needs profound reforms to solve these problems, namely the labor law and also the rental law. He recalled that young people are some of the most affected. “The youngest, the young, have been the variable in adjusting and paying for the rigidity in the labor and rental markets”, he reflects.
According to Leitão Amaro, some of the laws are not exactly what the Government wanted, namely the IRS. “It’s clear that we have laws that weren’t exactly what we wanted in the first place, we wanted to provide more relief to the middle class and not just the lower classes”, he summarizes.
On the topic of immigration, he stresses that the issue “is tearing Western democracies apart”. As a consequence, they affect “the relationship between people in society”. In the case of Portugal, he said that “reality has changed a lot” because of what he calls “open doors”.
In the various reforms in this area, Chega and the Liberal Initiative have been the Government’s partners for approvals. In the case of the return law, under discussion in Parliament, he believes that it will be the same parties again. “The PS is stuck in the past”, he said.
