Business leaders and academics have drafted a manifesto calling on the three largest parties in Portugal’s parliament to reach an understanding and listen to the President’s call for a ‘National Salvation‘ accord, according to the weekly Expresso.
Among the signatories so far, the newspaper reports, are economist and former minister Daniel Bessa, the former president of the Portuguese Industrial Confederation (CIP), Francisco van Zeller, and business executives João Bento and Rui Horta e Costa, as well as Alexandre Relvas, a former aide to President Aníbal Cavaco Silva.
The governing Social Democratic Party (PSD) and People’s Party (CDS-PP), and the opposition Socialist Party (PS), have been locked in talks since Sunday in the wake of the President’s call for an accord between them. They have given themselves a week to come up with results.
The manifesto, as cited by Expresso, acknowledges the “suffering” caused by austerity measures adopted by the right-of-centre coalition government, and makes the following appeal to the three parties:
Let them reach an understanding, under terms that only they themselves can decide [but] it should be designed to meet the goals agreed with the entities that are financing us today. Only be meeting those obligations can our independence be restored and (Portugal) can fully return to the financial markets.”
The document stresses that “some positive results” had been obtained over the past two years of austerity, namely an improvement in the country’s trade balance, but notes that there are some objectives – above all public finances and structural reforms – that have only been partially met.
On Wednesday morning, employers groups and the UGT trade union federation which last year signed the only tripartite agreement to be achieved under the current government, issued their own appeal to the parties to reach an agreement as soon as possible.
