Speech for the Taking Office of Prime Minister António Costa’s 2nd Government
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Yet I make a point of recalling the fundamental commitment to respond to four major strategic challenges we face, here and now, in front of you, Your Excellency.
I’ll start with climate change. Portugal was the first country to undertake the goal of Greenhouse Gas neutral emissions by 2050 in 2016, and we were also the first country to approve a Carbon Neutrality Roadmap.
The decisions made in terms of electricity generation using renewable sources in the previous mandate, particularly with regard to solar power, allowed us to take on the goal of ending coal fuelled electricity generation during this mandate.
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A second strategic challenge is demographic sustainability.
In a scenario of a progressively ageing population and low birth rates, we need to ensure young people have working conditions, housing and support to households, that they can be autonomous and have as many children as they desire.
Fighting job insecurity, striking a work-life balance, fostering accessible rents, these are priorities we will meet during this mandate, as well as birth support measures.
Yet a decent society is one that is based on solidarity between generations, and we want a country for the young and the elderly, children, and middle-aged men and women.
That is why the elderly need to be at the forefront of eradicating poverty. Accordingly, I would like to restate my commitment to, throughout these four years in office, raise the social benefit for the elderly to the threshold of poverty, so that during these four years, all the elderly, regardless of their pension, may be rid of poverty.
The third strategic challenge is digital transition. This is a challenge and an opportunity that cuts across the while of society, companies and public administration. It requires that we keep on investing in qualifications, scientific research, knowledge transfer for the corporate fabric, and entrepreneurship, while ensuring an inclusive transition that leaves no one behind.
For the State Budget for 2020 we will ensure that research centres are refunded the VAT they pay to procure equipment, material and services for their research projects.
This year we will make available another 200 million euros for technological centres, collaborative labs and interface centres for programmes with R&D projects with companies in the different clusters.
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Portuguese society needs to send young people a clear message. A message that it’s worth investing in their qualifications and that in Portugal they can be truly fulfilled both personally and professionally.
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Lastly, the fourth strategic challenge we need to overcome is inequality. Under several perspectives, our country is still deeply unequal. Whether in the clear imbalance between the coastal and inland areas, the persistent gender inequality, the staggering disproportion of income between those who have the most and those who need it the most. We still have a long road ahead.
The minimum wage still plays a highly important social role in eradicating poverty and bridging inequality. There are advantages in having a multi-annual forecast of its evolution, opening up the prospects of social progress for workers and a predictable horizon for companies.
In the previous mandate, the minimum wage rose almost 20%. Even so, we are all aware that we fall short of a fair valuation of work, so during this mandate we will try to increase the minimum wage further.
In this sense, the minimum wage will rise every year, after consulting with the social partners, according to the development of jobs and economic growth. The government’s aim is to have a minimum wage of €750 by 2023. As such, over the two mandates, the minimum wage will rise from 505 to 750 euros, a growth of around 50%. This is the greatest achievement ever in the evolution of our minimum wage, which brings us closer to the EU average. (...)