He announced that he had decided to promulgate the legislation immediately, citing the need to fill a legal vacuum.
“The regime that came from the previous government no longer applied, which was a 0.75 percent discount [on employers’ contributions on minimum-wage workers],” de Sousa explained to journalists at the presidential palace in Lisbon. “There is a vacuum now, so that punishes entities, namely entrepreneurial ones, and there was a need rapidly to fill that vacuum with the new regime.”
The president’s backing for the 1.25 percentage-point cut, which was approved by the minority Socialist government on Monday, came even as the opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD) - which the president once led - reiterated its rejection of the measure. That was despite the fact that the coalition government in which it was a senior partner proposed similar policies.
The president also cited the fact that the measure had been agreed by employer organisations and one of Portugal’s two largest trade union federations, in statutory tripartite talks.
That agreement, which was reached on 22 December, was part of a package foreseeing an increase in the statutory minimum wage to €557 a month from the beginning of this year. Legislation enshrining that increase is already in force.
The president declined to speculate on whether the bill he has now promulgated might be revoked by parliament.
The left-of-centre parties that usually provide parliamentary support for the Socialist government have pledged to debate the measure in parliament and try to revoke it, and the PSD has said that it plans to oppose the measure.