Miguel A. Lopes / Lusa
Many subjects and many exchanges of “mouths” in the debate in Parliament: the SNS, the presidential elections, housing and the “flic flac in the rear”.
The state of the National Health Service (SNS) was one of the topics highlighted in the debate fortnightly this Wednesday, in Parliament.
The Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, considered it “an abuse” to attribute the excess mortality recorded in Portugal to a “lack of assistance”, responding to the PS leader that the Government is evaluating the reasons for these numbers.
José Luís Carneiro, pointed to data from the agency that, in Europe, monitors the number of deaths and pointed out “more than 20% of deaths in Portugal than what was expected”.
“I want to tell the Prime Minister that I will not do to him what he did to the PS governments when he was in opposition, but I want to ask him a very clear question: did he or did he not instruct the Ministry of Health services to investigate the causes of this abnormal number of deaths or not?”, he pointed out, considering that it must be known whether the deaths were “due to lack of medical assistance, lack of hospital emergency, lack of pre-hospital emergency response”.
In response, the chief executive replied that an assessment is being carried out to find out in more depth the reasons behind these numbers.
“It is, of course, not expected that we will be able to reach a definitive conclusion yet, but the deputy will not ignore the fact that both the Government, and certainly all the political forces in this parliament, will be very convergent in the sense of having absolute respect for the causes that may be behind this record and that, honestly, it will be a abuse can consider on this occasion they are related to lack of assistance”, defended Montenegro.
“Our National Health Service is not experiencing a situation of chaos. Our National Health Service is experiencing difficult situations, embarrassing situations, but it works better today than it did a year ago, and a year ago it worked better than it did two years ago”, assured the Prime Minister.
Whose initiative?
About the new ambulances do INEM, José Luís Carneiro questioned the Prime Minister about “the reasons for the delay in this acquisition” since, according to the socialist, 24 hours after the debate on January 8th it was known that “after all it was the expenditure authorization given by the PS Government in November 2023”.
“How did you have the nerve to bring this Assembly to a initiative as if it were their responsibility, when it was the responsibility of the Socialist Party Government?” he asked.
In response, Montenegro began by saying that he expected a “more serious” record from Carneiro, then moving on to the history of the acquisition of ambulances.
“There is a resolution from the Council of Ministers of November 2023, the execution of which we found when we arrived at the Government in April 2024 was zero. In May 2024, INEM itself requested a financial reprogramming, precisely suspending this procedure and formulating a different request. Based on this new procedure, the previous Government, which was presided over by the same Prime Minister who exercises these functions, now implemented this new decision in a resolution in August 2024”, described.
According to the Prime Minister, in October 2024, INEM “updated a request to the Government again”, and the process was then “in dialogue” and “was submitted in May 2025”
“The acquisition procedure was launched on July 7, 2025 and the ESPAP Board of Directors definitively approved the purchase, the award, on January 7, on the eve of the other fortnightly debate in which I was here and that was precisely what I announced”, he said.
Montenegro considered that “this reality” will happen “many more times” because “the Socialist Party governments did not lack ideas”.
“Achievements and achievements, these they stayed in the mountainsthey were even piled up in all the offices”, he accused.
Social Security
The PS leader accused the Government of having intended “hide your Social Security balance” to not permanently increase the lowest pensions and to have increased the tax burden by 6.8% until November 2025.
José Luís Carneiro said that the Government had put into the State Budget “just more than 90 million euros than in the previous year”. “What is certain is that, in the parliamentary debate, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance admitted that, after all, the balance could be more than 400 million euros. Well, very well, with the results of November 2025, we have already verified that the balance is more than 1,457 million euros”, he pointed out.
According to the PS leader, this shows that the Government wanted to “hide the Social Security balance so as not to increase the lower pensions proposed by the Socialist Party”.
“The Lord rejected a sustainable proposalstructured, to be able to use the dropper as an instrument for attributing extraordinary supplements and, therefore, use this instrument in an electoral way. And we will always be fighting and denouncing this exploitation of the elderly for political and electoral purposes”, he accused.
A long letter
The Prime Minister announced that the Council of Ministers will approve, on Thursday, investments that will allow “more competitive public transport”, choosing as central objectives of several government policies to secure human resources and attract more foreign investment.
It was a response to the PSD parliamentary leader, Hugo Soares, what read a long open letter from a citizenCarolina Sampaio Dinis, published on her Linkedin, in which thanked the Government for the measures aimed at supporting young people up to 35 years of age when purchasing their first home.
“Thank you. I never dreamed of buying a house. I grew up hearing that it wasn’t for everyone. But, in the midst of all this, There was something that is rarely said out loud: the State was present. They were concrete decisions: the public guarantee, the tax exemption.”
“Not everything is done, but I saw the impact on my life of well-made public options”, he said, for almost 10 minutes – being interrupted after a certain point, with comments and laughter from deputies from different benches.
In response, the Prime Minister said that the Government was just “doing its obligation” and announced news in terms of mobility, without detailing what.
“Tomorrow at the Council of Ministers we will decide important things in the field of mobility, we will have more investments in the field of mobility, so that we also have competitive public transportto have even more quality of life factors”, he said.
Presidential, contradiction
The PSD parliamentary leader He arrives of contradiction by want the support of the prime minister to presidential candidate André Ventura, after criticizing his presence in Marques Mendes’ campaign.
After the topic of the presidential campaign entered the fortnightly debate in parliament in Chega’s first intervention, Hugo Soares wanted to comment on Pedro Pinto’s questions, who challenged Luís Montenegro to say whether he would support António José Seguro or André Ventura, saying that he “couldn’t sit on the fence”.
In an ironic tone, Hugo Soares cited phrases said by the Chega-supported candidate in the first round, when he accused Montenegro of wanting to be “the buoys” by Luís Marques Mendes, candidate supported by PSD and CDS-PP, stating that he even criticized the PSD leader’s entry into the campaign and said “screw Montenegro”.
“Is this what André Ventura told the country about the prime minister and now they are asking the prime minister to support Dr. André Ventura’s candidacy?”, he asked, receiving lots of applause from his bench.
For Hugo Soares, either Pedro Pinto did not agree positions with André Ventura or Chega “made a ‘flic flac’ at the rear”.
Chega challenged the prime minister to say who he supports in the second round of the presidential elections, whether he will “stand on the side of who fight socialism”, with Luís Montenegro asking that these elections not be confused with legislative ones.
Strategies
The secretary general of the PCP accused Montenegro of not taking a position on the second round of the presidential elections to guarantee, alternately, the support of Chega and PS, with Luís Montenegro refusing any “tactical nature” in his choices.
Paulo Raimundo justified: “We understood the tactic. Do you want to keep it in PS a reserve for when it is necessary to use blackmail for the PS to lend a hand on structural issues, as it did in this year’s State Budget. At the same time, I want to maintain Chega’s continued support in what is decisive for its own governance. Because you know that the Enough and the candidate André Ventura will never be missed.”
BE suggested that the PSD president and prime minister opted for a neutral position regarding the second round of the presidential elections because awaits Chega’s votes to approve the labor package not parliament.
“The Minister of Labor said this morning that the labor package will advance regardless of what happens in the social consultation, so I ask you, Prime Minister, if your problem in taking a position in the second round between a democrat and an authoritarian is because you are waiting for Chega’s votes to impose the labor package here in parliament”, asked Fabian Figueiredo.
Interests
On the IL side, Mariana Leitão asked Luís Montenegro: “Can you now explain to the Portuguese the reason that motivated you to place the their party interests ahead of the country’s interestsleading to there not being a center-right candidate in the second round of these presidential elections?”
The Prime Minister replied: “If there is anyone who viewed the presidential elections from the point of view of party interests, with all due respect, it was Mrs. [Mariana Leitão]because she stopped being a presidential candidate to take on a party position.”
A capa
The PAN’s only deputy challenged the prime minister to leave “the cloak of neutrality” in terms of presidential elections: “When we are talking about choosing a candidate who currently represents the three Salazars, the politics of populism and the degradation of institutions and a candidate who can actually guarantee democratic stability, respect for institutions and even government stability itself, I don’t really see where the doubt lies”, challenged Inês Sousa Real.
In his response, Luís Montenegro considered that he had been accused in the debate of “one thing and its opposite”. “I was already accused of having participated excessively in the first round of the electoral campaign. The deputy just said that, in recent weeks, I have been very neutral”, he pointed out.
Ventura is a Democrat
The parliamentary leader of the CDS-PP rejected that the president of Chega qualifies, André Ventura, “anti-democratic candidate” the President of the Republic, and for the PS to claim the result obtained by António José Seguro as its victory.
Still on the presidential topic, Paulo Núncio began by saying that “the fortnightly debates with the prime minister are not for commenting on presidential elections”, but then addressed this topic.
“I hear people saying that the second round of the presidential elections will be contested between a democratic candidate and an anti-democratic candidate. Ladies and gentlemen, any candidate who receives the popular vote and wins elections has democratic legitimacy, whether from the left or from the right”, he assured.
