Carneiro says young socialists are concerned about housing and average incomes

PS Secretary-General José Luís Carneiro revealed today the main concerns of young socialists, highlighting the issue of housing, the rise in average incomes, the cost of living, and the quality of democratic life.

"I'm here to recognize the work of our young socialists, who want to present an agenda for democratic local government, with priorities that are highly relevant to the Portuguese people. The first is to seek to increase the average income of younger people," he stated.

At the entrance to the Socialist Youth Municipal Convention, which is taking place in Coimbra, with the participation of around 80 young people, José Luís Carneiro highlighted that young people intend to improve average incomes, "making them evolve to the level of average European incomes".

"The second biggest priority for our young people is housing. It's impossible to ignore the government's inaction when Portugal was the OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] country with the highest housing costs. We haven't seen a structured supply-side response from the government, and worse still, the information we have from local authorities is that they haven't even been able to contact the IHRU [Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation] for months," he added.

The PS leader told journalists that the third major concern has to do with the cost of living, specifically food costs.

"It's very important that we reaffirm the proposals we put forward in our election campaign, namely zero VAT on food products that constitute a staple of our food supply, because they're rising exponentially and this is having a significant impact on families," he said.

Finally, José Luís Carneiro alluded to the quality of democratic life.

"Our young people are very concerned about how the far right, populism, and the radicalization of societies are disrupting the healthy, constructive dialogue of a qualified, European, pluralistic, and diverse democracy that respects human rights and values them every day in its daily agenda, defending the dignity of every person," he said.

When asked about the possibility of Mário Centeno running for Belém, after he refused to close the door on his return to politics in an interview with RTP, the PS secretary-general stressed that he had already said what he had to say about the presidential elections.

“We can only say that we will welcome him with open arms whenever and however he wishes to participate in the life of the Socialist Party,” he concluded.