António Costa was responding to the PAN’s only deputy, Inês Sousa Real, in the debate on the Program of the XXIII Constitutional Government, in the Assembly of the Republic, who, moments before, had criticised the document for being a “copy and paste” of the electoral program of the socialists.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but the government's program is not a copy and paste of the PS program, it is the PS's own electoral program”, replied Costa.

Energy poverty

Inês Sousa Real left some criticism of the Government on environmental matters, lamenting the extinction of the Ministry of the Sea (which was included in the Ministry of Economy) and warning of the fact that there are “two million people living in energy poverty”, in a context of rising inflation.

António Costa stressed that, in terms of the environment, the program has “very concrete and clear commitments”, namely the “55% reduction by 2030 in greenhouse gases” or the increase to “47% of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption”.

Costa also mentioned the objective of moving “from 60% of electricity produced with renewable sources to 80%, already during this legislature, by 2026”.

Also in environmental matters, the sole deputy of Livre, Rui Tavares, challenged the Government to say whether it is available to “apply the additional 1,500 million euros of the Recovery and Resilience Plan that Portugal will receive” in the 3C program (House, comfort and climate) – proposal presented by the party that aims to fight energy poverty.

In his reply, Costa said that he was not aware of this specific project, referring that “the notice that is open under the PRR to finance the improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings, namely residential, still has a large amount to be used for the universe of candidates who have already applied for competition".

“It is my conviction that what explains a low application rate is that there is really little knowledge of this program and it is necessary to promote this program more”, he defended.