Liberalism in Portugal. “The State cannot be a player and development”
The eight deputies of the Liberal Initiative, elected in the last legislative laws, started their functions on Tuesday.
On January 30, the Portuguese and Portuguese took to the streets to choose the next representatives in the Assembly of the Republic. Next Tuesday, almost two months later, the inauguration of the 230 elected deputies takes place. Among the parties that grew the most in these parties is the Liberal Initiative (IL). Despite eight elections in 2019, only one deputy – João Cotrim de Figueiredo –, the party now has a parliamentary group of people.
Miguel Guimarães, professor of Political Science at the Minho’s university, argues that the Liberal Initiative came to respond to an electorate that did not see itself in the existing parties in the Portuguese political spectrum. Apoducing from the IL economy, there were “parties that are liberal at the time of the economy” and that the State is conceivable “give the possibility to private initiative”, but that not even liberals nam “being that is liberal in costume”.
Thus, the party, founded in 2017, Batista came to fill this space by defending “liberalism across the board”, as Olga says, general coordinator of the Braga nucleus and founding member of the party. “We had on the right the defense of the economic part with the CDS, but very conservative in terms of customs. Then a left very linked to the liberalization of costumes, but at the economic level we have statist. Only liberalism can seek the best of both worlds”, explains the coordinator.
“The main concept is freedom of choice”
Having as a banner “the maximization of the freedom of the individual”, what liberalism considers, the State should not have a monopoly on the services provided to citizens. Thus, although the government “continues to finance public services”, these “can and should also be provided by private parties”, explains Miguel Guimarães.
In contrast to socialism, which defends a “more paternalistic” State with the creation of a service that “can serve everyone”, liberalism emphasizes “freedom of choice and the responsibility of men”, argues the professor. “You have the possibility to choose the person responsible for the choices that make each person feel free to be free the next. We don’t have to have a State to say what we want for our life”, reiterates a founding member of the Liberal Initiative.
The State must assume an important “control” in the regulation of competition, this, however, is another of the flags of liberalism. According to the coordination of the Braga nucleus, “the State must exist and it must be a development project. Now it can’t be player and development, which is what happens.”
Impact of liberal policies in Portugal
According to O, a state institution is also responsible for “tools” for people with socioeconomic difficulties, so that the party can be autonomous and “do something for itself and society”. This is what Olga Batista calls “literacy” as the main tool. Bruno Machado, member of the board of the Braga nucleus elected by the IL and municipal deputy in the last local councils, this position when considering that “the State must help people, but this cannot be a help”.
In this sense, they admit that they are in favor of the de facto unemployment coordinator, but they disapprove of this recurrent support, stating that “the State cannot constantly feed these situations”. The same applies to housing support, as an example of a municipal deputy. “We understand that this help must be given when the person needs it and that, after that moment, they must go out and look for a home of their own so that this space can be given to someone else who really needs it”, argues Bruno Machado.
The IL also defends the end of the National Minimum Wage and the creation of a municipal minimum wage, that is, defined by each municipality. Giving Continental Portugal autonomous from the Azores of Madeira, which have, probably, the most likely example of the Bruno Continental regions that compete between the municipalities”. Consequently, a greater competitive economy, in your company, “more industry, employment and dynamism”. “When there is dynamism, naturally the minimum wage would increase, because things end up being interconnected”, concludes the coordinator.
The UM professor says that it is necessary to assess the situation with “care”, since this market logic “in a country with serious asymmetries may not work”. Despite agreeing that it is “a very well thought-out solution” for countries with “a more egalitarian economy in territorial terms”, Miguel Guimarães highlights that Portugal’s regional inequality would require the application of correction mechanisms “so large that they would almost cancel out the a correction of competition and competition”.
Olga Batista, in turn, recognizes that the Portuguese reality is different from the situation of other more competitive countries, but “it doesn’t have to be tomorrow”. Thus, she believes that the solution is to “look at the best examples” and “start working on the side”. “We can’t take these policies and apply them directly, but we can start working to get there,” she concludes.