Portugal’s Prime Minister Luís Montenegro and Socialist Party leader Pedro Nuno Santos will meet again as part of the 2025 budget negotiations, according to Euractiv.
The meeting will take place at the Prime Minister’s official residence on Thursday after a two-week debate in Parliament, which starts at 3:00 p.m. Montenegro and Nuno Santos met for the first time last Friday to discuss the 2025 budget, but the meeting passed without agreement.
After the meeting, the PS general secretary said that he would reject the budget with the government’s proposed changes to IRS Jovem and corporate tax. Instead, Nuno Santos said that the budget margin earmarked for IRS Jovem should be used for public investment in middle class housing, emergency pension increases and support for doctors.
Shortly afterwards, Montenegro called his proposal “radical and inflexible” but promised that this week he would present a counter-proposal to the Socialists in an “attempt to bring positions closer together.”
The 2025 budget must be submitted to parliament by 10 October. However, only an abstention by PS or a vote in favour of national conservative party Chega can guarantee that the budget will be approved.
