Since taking office, you have spent much of your time visiting people and municipalities that often seem to be forgotten by politicians. How will this contact with the people benefit you in the future?
It has been a fantastic experience of human, political and civic enrichment. Feeling and meeting so many people spread throughout the territory helps a lot in the task of scrutinising and reviewing the work of the government and enables us to be more competent and accurate in the choices we will have to make in the future, when we present ourselves to govern Portugal.
And how critical are you of the state budget?
We are living in a cycle of impoverishment. People, families, companies and institutions pay more and more taxes and the public services provided by the state are increasingly far from meeting the needs. Economically, we grow in cumulative terms, from 2016 to 2021, by 7.1%, when the cohesion countries of the European Union grew by an average of 18.4%. We are ranked 21 in Europe with the per capita income at 27. We are increasingly lagging behind, watching the development of the East and the relocation of investment and labour to other geographies. The passivity and immobility of this government have aggravated the setbacks of recent years, and the 2023 state budget is yet another expression of this.
What strategy are you implementing to confront the socialist government?
Firmness and demandingness in opposition. Openness, reflection and ambition in the design of a winning, credible and majority alternative that brings new hope to Portugal.
«Brazil is extremely important in the world economic and ecological context, and it is extremely important within the Portuguese-speaking world, whose motherland is Portugal»
You have almost three years until the general elections. Are you anxious about it?Personally, I don’t have any anxiety. It is the Portuguese people who are beginning to be anxious about having a new government, and they have many reasons for this. The Portuguese people gave an absolute majority to the PS, they gave the majority of municipal councils and parish councils to the PS, more members of the European Parliament to the PS and now they are rightly saying that the PS is undervaluing the trust it received. The PS is confusing the party with the state. The PS is failing the country.
As an observer of world politics, what do you think Lula da Silva’s government in Brazil will be like? Will it affect world politics in the coming years?
First of all, I hope that the Brazilian people will be reconciled from a division that was literally split down the middle. Secondly, I do not want the government to be a factional one, either from an institutional or a programmatic point of view. Brazil is extremely important in the world economic and ecological context, and it is extremely important within the Portuguese-speaking world, whose motherland is Portugal.
How is Luís Montenegro, the father?
The best thing is to ask my children..., but I try to be the most pedagogical in passing on the values of work, honesty, tolerance and solidarity. The characteristic I try to instil in them the most, because it is the one I appreciate the most, is that they are always capable of putting themselves in other people’s shoes. Apart from that, we do many things together, starting with the love of sports that we share and often practice, although golf is not yet a sport they have got into. In short, a father’s love cannot be described, it can be felt. And they give me that privilege.