In an excert from this interview, Duarte Cordeiro said that, in the special phase of the State Budget debate for 2020, the details of this measure will be settled.
“We signalled that there would be an extraordinary increase in pensions on similar terms to what happened in the past. We have to close the details, namely when this increase will happen,” said the member of the executive who, in parliament, makes the link between the government and the parties.
According to Duarte Cordeiro, the measure will be taken “in the same terms as in previous years”.
“It is 10 Euros, but still closing the period from which it occurred. It was not the same every year, there were variations. We just realised how it could be done in this Budget,” he said.
Both the CFP and the Left Bloc have already submitted proposals for amendments to the State Budget for 2020 which include extraordinary increases of €10 in pensions.
The CFP wants a minimum increase for all pensions of €10 from January, in order to “mitigate the insufficient increases that resulted from the application of the annual update mechanism”.
In 2017 and 2018, pensions had an extra increase paid from August. In 2017, the expenditure increase was €79 million and €154 million in 2018. Last year, the extraordinary increase in pensions came into force as early as January and cost about €137 million.
In the same interview, Duarte Cordeiro stated that, in the context of budgetary negotiations with the CFP, in addition to pensions, the Government agreed to “make the extraordinary increase for the long-term unemployed definitive”.
Duarte Cordeiro added that there are measures accepted by the Government that “please” various parties, such as “reinforcement in mental health” - a matter agreed with the Left Bloc, but “is relevant to the PAN and the Livre parties also”.