Portugal's parliament is back on Wednesday with six sitting days booked and a budget due on 12 October
The leaders' conference has set the autumn agenda: national exams, online gambling, the start of the school year, the INEM shake-up and the urban tenancy regime. The prime minister's first debate waits until 9 October.
The new legislative session opens on Wednesday with six plenary days already booked before the end of September. At the far end of the queue sits the date that matters to everyone: the 2027 State Budget proposal must reach the Assembly of the Republic by 12 October.
The budget framework law puts the deadline at 10 October. This year that falls on a Saturday, so it slides to the following Monday.
What lands on each day
The 16th opens proceedings. Government bills on the revision of the statute governing the administrative and tax courts go to the floor, the annual internal security report is debated, and MPs consider the Left Bloc’s request for a parliamentary inquiry into the education ministry’s national exam process.
The 17th brings a topical debate requested by Livre on online gambling and betting, which the party wants regulated as a public health problem rather than merely a licensed industry.
The 23rd belongs to the Communists, who have called a debate on the start of the school year. They have already flagged their priorities: unfilled teaching timetables, shortages of teachers and specialist staff, and what the school year costs a household.
The 24th is a slot claimed by Chega, with the subject still unannounced.
The 25th is the crowded one. Health bills from the Government and the PSD, a Socialist resolution on the cost of living, a Liberal Initiative bill on transparency at the public broadcaster RTP, and a parliamentary review of the new INEM statute requested by Livre alongside the Left Bloc and the Communists.
The 30th closes the month. MPs debate the legislative authorisation the Government wants in order to rewrite the urban tenancy regime, a Chega bill on veterans’ pensions, a PSD proposal making helmets compulsory on electric scooters, a Communist bill on protecting access to housing, and a CDS proposal on hiring autonomy for teachers in private and cooperative schools.
Where is the prime minister?
The session’s first fortnightly debate with the prime minister does not happen until 9 October, the second-to-last working day of the budget delivery window. The debate preparing the next European Council falls on the same date, stacking two demanding conversations on the eve of the year’s biggest document.
Before that, the Government has meetings booked with every party in parliament for the end of September, where it will set out the broad lines of the proposal and take the temperature. The declared strategy is a budget without riders — nothing beyond the public accounts themselves — precisely to cut down the number of reasons anyone might have to vote it down.
One file on that list already reaches into people’s kitchens. The rewrite of the urban tenancy regime arrives on 30 September, in the same autumn that rents can rise by 2.56% in 2027. And the 23 September debate runs alongside the Safe School operation now under way in more than 4,400 schools.
Image: GualdimG / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
