Iniciativa Liberal Promises a Whole-System Tax Reform Before Year's End as the Political Year Restarts in Quarteira, With the Left Bloc Regrouping in Setúbal
Not tinkering with IRC and IRS, says the liberals' parliamentary leader, but the tax system as a whole, plus justice, civil protection and Social Security. In Setúbal the Bloco calls its first Pureza-era forum a moment of listening. Both are aiming at the 2027 budget.
Portugal's political year restarts this weekend at opposite ends of the country and opposite ends of the spectrum. Iniciativa Liberal gathers in Quarteira, in the Algarve, for its "A'gosto da Liberdade" event. Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) meets in Setúbal for the Fórum Socialismo. Both are pointing at the same target: the 2027 State Budget.
The liberals arrived with a list. Speaking to RTP's Antena 1 ahead of leader Mariana Leitão's speech, the party's parliamentary leader and vice-president Mário Amorim Lopes said Iniciativa Liberal will bring forward a tax reform "that looks at the tax system as a whole".
"It is not just tinkering here and there with taxes, lowering IRC a bit, IRS a bit, which at the end of the day does not move the needle," he said, referring to Portugal's corporate and personal income taxes. The party wants something "more ambitious" and expects to present it "still this year".
Four reforms, one budget
The tax package is one of four items. The party has already tabled a proposal to modernise the Lei de Bases da Proteção Civil (Civil Protection Framework Law), which features again in Quarteira. A justice reform is being prepared for "early 2027 at the latest", aimed at speed and specifically at the administrative and tax courts, which Amorim Lopes described as "those that block the country". And the party says it will present its own Social Security reform: "Most parties, some deny it, others postpone reforms that are in truth impossible to postpone. What we are going to do is present a reform."
The immediate provocation is the government's response to the report of the working group on Social Security reform. Amorim Lopes characterised the prime minister's position as having said he will do "absolutely nothing this legislature", which he called symptomatic and compared to the previous Socialist government: "sailing by sight, with no vision for the country".
On the budget itself, the liberals promise a "constructive posture" with a "sense of urgency". "That is what we are going to demand of the government in the budget negotiations. That it acts, that it has the political courage to act, and that it changes course a little from these last two years."
This is Leitão's second rentrée as leader. Her party's most recent set-piece intervention was a demand for an independent audit of RTP and a route to full privatisation in June.
The Left Bloc looks inward
In Setúbal, at the Escola Secundária Sebastião da Gama, the Bloco is holding the first rentrée under José Manuel Pureza's leadership, and the framing is markedly less programmatic. Party official Andreia Galvão told Antena 1 the two-day Fórum Socialismo will be above all "a moment of listening", with members and with "people who do not share the same political line" but have "important contributions" to make.
"It is an important moment to relaunch the Bloco in politics and the left in general, to reflect on the left critically and constructively, and to think about how to create a politics of hope again," she said, pointing to what she called a reduction of rights running "from the PSU to Social Security, to education, to freedom of movement".
The programme mixes current and former Bloco figures with names from elsewhere on the left: the Socialist Alexandra Leitão, the former PCP deputy Rita Rato and the former Bloco leader Mariana Mortágua. Galvão framed convergence as the point. "The Bloco's objective is not just to get elected, it is to actually achieve significant changes in people's lives." Pureza gives the closing speech on Sunday.
What follows
The budget arithmetic has not changed. The Socialists opened their own autumn campaign in Olhão two weeks ago with the 2027 budget as the prize, and their terms have already collided with the government's ten-year ambition. Individual fights are forming around the meal allowance and pensions. Chega, meanwhile, is on a different track entirely: André Ventura has set Tuesday as a deadline for a motion of censure that would need 116 votes he does not have.
