Opposition parties reacted to the Prime Minister’s Christmas message arguing that Pedro Passos Coelho used half truths and that the message was actually an electoral message, rather than a Christmas one.
Referring to 'half-truths, lies and deception and the repetition of unfulfilled promises,' the Left Bloc MP Marisa Matias said that we would all love to live in the country described by Pedro Passos Coelho but that he had used half truths to continue to sell us a big lie.
Pedro Passos Coelho said on Christmas day that this is the first Christmas "for many years" that the Portuguese "will not have an accumulation of dark clouds on the horizon." "A lot has changed throughout this period of austerity and finally we have begun to reap the fruits of these changes," said the Prime Minister who showed no obvious signs of intoxication.
The Left Bloc responded by saying that "the largest black cloud of the country is austerity" and accused the prime minister of selling us all a big lie.
One of the half truths was that Passos Coelho said that Portugal "will start to see an increase in household purchasing power in 2015 and this is illustrated by his income tax reforms, "For the Left Bloc what the Prime Minister does not mention is that this is the same year that €300 million will be removed from family allowances."
The creation of jobs is contested by the Left Bloc which considers that "there has been more destruction of jobs than creation" and that "there were 130,000 Portuguese who have had to leave the country each year since this government has been in office."
Marisa Matias added that the only positive thing about this Christmas message was that it may well be Passos Coelho’s last.
Carlos César, the president of the socialist party said that the PM’s Christmas message was more of an election message and of course he had not mentioned the chaos in education, the justice system, foreign policy and the increasingly irrelevant role Portugal has within europe.
The communist party also said that the "black clouds" that Pedro Passos Coelho referred to will not disappear. "We have over 2.5 million poor in Portugal, of which half a million are children. Therefore, these dark clouds will continue," argued João Dias Coelho.
See>
http://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/4340-pm-s-christmas-speech-clear-skies-with-cloudy-intervals
Comments
this depends entirely on how you read changes.
As rolling back changes has seriously put the wind up the Troika ! Which may herald more dark clouds in this perennially depressed country.
The Portuguese Government had 'promised' to be doing a variety of things over the years of supervision and has failed to implement, back tracked or later diluted many of the 'changes' agreed.
As proof - Read the recent Dec. 2014 Post Programme Surveillance ...
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/occasional_paper/2014/op208_en.htm