The President of the Republic spared no criticism of the housing package presented by António Costa, two days after the former head of state, Cavaco Silva, also destroyed the measures.
“As it is conceived, right from the start, the housing package is inoperable. Whether at the point of departure or at the point of arrival”, said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in an answer to a question posed in the Open Writing that marked the 44 years of the CM and the 10 from CMTV.
Marcelo compared the proposal – which in part is still under public consultation – to lessons from the Faculty of Law. “In the learning that we did in the making of laws, there were the so-called poster laws. Poster laws are those laws that appear to proclaim certain programmatic principles, but the basic idea is not that they pass into practice”, he described.
For the President, “a poster law has an advantage in the very short term and a huge inconvenience in the medium and long term”. And he explained: “In the very short term, it is a pole of fixation for what it promises. Just around the corner, turned into unfeasible, it means that expectations have been raised that are instantly frustrated.”
Thus, concluded Marcelo on the Mais Habitação program, “it would have been preferable not to have raised expectations, since there was a real problem and the apparent solution being impractical, it would have been better not to have talked about it”.
Weekly meetings with Costa without papers
In the conversation, the head of state also confessed that in the weekly meetings with the Prime Minister “there are no papers on the table, there are no summonses, there are no minutes, there is nothing”. “Memoirs are always written to justify something”, shot Marcelo, adding that not even recorders are used since “even erasing the erasures never match the two versions”. “It’s a gentleman’s agreement.”
Regarding the future, Marcelo rejected the idea that he could leave the Palace of Belém to return to political commentary, when his mandate ends. “The President of the Republic is left with so much information and with so many elements that weigh that the best thing is not to say anything [após cessar funções]”, he said, emphasizing that “you need to know how to get out in time”. “There will be no more intervention, which is a stupefaction for myself too” he asserted, adding that “on the day it ends, it ends”.
Cofina Group “is strong”
The president of Cofina (owner of Negócios, CM and CMTV), Paulo Fernandes, participated in the same open newsroom panel, together with the head of state, where he assured that “the Cofina group is healthy and strong”.
About the future, Paulo Fernandes said that he intends to continue leading the group: “Despite my age and gray hair, I still feel strong enough to make my contribution”. And he emphasized that “Cofina will adapt to the changes that are taking place in the outside world”.
