The Government of Madeira (PSD / CDS-PP) will maintain “availability for dialogue” with the Republic, without failing to make demands, after the PS realized that the “strategy of trying to harm the region did not work”, says the president of the executive.
“We are in a new cycle of relations with the Republic […]. At this moment, we have a permanent dialogue framework ”, declared the social democrat Miguel Albuquerque, in an interview with the Lusa agency, on the eve of the first 100 days of the inauguration (22 January).
The chief executive, who began his second term on October 15, 2019, underlined that this availability for understanding has in view “the realization and realization of what are the interests of the region and the national interest in these islands”.
In the regional elections of 22 September 2019, PSD / Madeira lost for the first time the absolute majority that it held for 40 years in the region, by electing only 21 of the 47 deputies of the regional parliament.
To ensure governance in the archipelago, the Social Democrats formed a coalition with the three deputies elected by the CDS. The assembly is also composed of 19 parliamentarians from the PS, three from the JPP and one from the PCP.
“The electoral cycle is over and I think the PS also realized that that strategy of trying to harm the region, with a view to harming the Regional Government and taking benefits for the party at the regional level, did not work,” he declared.
Albuquerque stressed, however, that this availability “does not invalidate the PPD / PSD continuing to claim and fight forcefully” for those he considers to be “the just demands of the Autonomous Region of Madeira”.
One of them is the revision of the Regional Finance Law, since it “has an injustice and discriminatory component in relation to the region” that affects Madeira in the transfer of State funds.
The minister noted that progress has already been made in the State Budget for 2020 in terms of clarifying the financing of the new hospital in Madeira (50% share) and the introduction of a variable rate that allowed a reduction of seven million euros per year in the debt service in the region.
“We want to resolve other issues that are pending, such as the revision of the mobility and maritime transport allowance for people and goods”, he mentioned, ensuring that his executive will “continue to work and dialogue to find solutions”.
For Miguel Albuquerque, in these first 100 days of the new legislature, “in the parliamentary framework itself, the fragility, at this moment, of the PS” was demonstrated ”.
“The PS, contrary to expectations, has a parliamentary group and very weak parliamentary leadership, much less incisive than in the past,” he said.
In his opinion, in the first parliamentary debates of the new legislature it was found that “the new leadership of the PS and the parliamentary group and those supposed saviors of Madeira are nothing more than a ‘bluff’”.
The socialist bench, he said, “has no political consistency and was more of a‘ marketing ’product.”
“In the debate, in the parliamentary dialectic they are very weak”, he said.
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