Two proposals for amendments to the decree-law that established the extraordinary complement to pensions, presented by PSD and Chega, which aimed to include pensioners residing outside Portugal, were failed. Rita Santos continues to dialogue with Caixa Geral de Aposentação to seek a consensus.
Two Portuguese political parties, Chega and the Social-Democratic Party (PSD), presented two proposals to amend the decree-law that determines the payment of the extraordinary complement to pensions only to retired people residing in Portugal. The proposals were failed last week in the Assembly of the Republic (AR).
The decree-law in question, inserted in the State Budget for 2023, voted on in the last few days, excludes pensioners living outside the country, namely the 2,100 who live in Macau and who receive pensions from the Caixa Geral de Aposentação (CGA). In the Asia and Oceania area, there are 2,794 people outside of extraordinary support.
The PSD proposed to remove the term “national citizen”, while Chega’s proposal aimed to extend “the exceptional supplement to pensioners not residing in the national territory and to retirees inserted in private pension funds”.
For Jorge Fão, director of the Association of Retired, Retired and Pensioners of Macau (APOMAC), the proposals in question were “a brave and honest gesture”. Fão believes that, when drafting the decree-law, there was a “technical error” by the Ministry of Finance. “I don’t see the Socialist Party [currently in government] drafting legislation that only looks at people living in the country. As few as we are, the Government also has to take care of us”, he told HM.
Jorge Fão, who has already contacted several entities in Portugal, regrets the meager response from Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, President of the Republic, including Rita Santos, president of the Regional Council of Portuguese Communities in Asia and Oceania.
“I said that if I don’t have an answer to send a new letter to the Prime Minister, but that is not an answer to give. He washed his hands like Pontius Pilate. He [Marcelo] has always been a great constitutionalist and knows what is right and wrong. I sent him a letter and he didn’t reply. As a matter of courtesy, I should do it”, he accused.
Fão assumes that “it is not easy to pass opposition proposals [in the AR], since the PS has an absolute majority”.
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