PSD leader accuses government of ‘penguin measures’

SDP President Luis Montenegro this Thursday accused the government of “acting very erratically” and of “measures against penguins”, for example in regards to a return to regulated gas tariffs.

“It’s fair to say that it’s better than nothing,” said Luis Montenegro in Grandola, Setúbal, in response to a question from journalists about today’s government statement regarding the gas sector.

The government announced it would propose lifting existing legal restrictions to allow access to a regulated market for families and small businesses, subject to an increase announced on Wednesday.

But, according to the PSD President, although this measure is “better than nothing, it is still very small and very insufficient for the effects that are beginning to be felt and are already being felt in many Portuguese families.”

“The government is acting very erratically, with little action against penguins, week after week it says nothing and has announced in advance a stronger package for September,” Montenegro said during a visit to Feira de Agosto. , in Grandola.

For the social-democratic leader, “it is better to be able to provide household consumers with access to a regulated gas tariff, but it is also necessary to understand how this will happen.”

“Sometimes in order to change the tariff at the usual time, we talk for hours on the phone, reach the end and cannot get a good result, now we want 1.5 million people to change their contracts in a few weeks and stick to the regulated tariff,” said he, stating that the government should explain how this will be done.

Montenegro said he still wanted to know if the government was “careful that next year [não exista] increase in the most regulated tariff”, and also noted that the measure announced by the socialist executive power “does not include 93% of gas consumption” related to companies.

“What will happen and what is happening is an increase in production” and who will pay for this increase, “when there is no policy of reducing energy prices on the part of companies, it is consumers,” he reasoned.

For PSD, the path will be through “direct support from the people”, which will be “a much more efficient, much more efficient, much more feasible way than what was announced today.”