Speaking to journalists after visiting the exhibition "A Century of Portugal: Portuguese Confederation of Cultural, Recreational and Sports Groups", in Lisbon, Paulo Raimundo argued that the Government "had no alternative but to respond to the demands of commitments it had made".

"The Government had no option but to respond to this need. It is the result of the teachers' struggle," he said.

The PCP leader stressed that the problem was only not resolved earlier because "the PSD pulled the plug" in 2019, and because the PS also did not want to resolve it in 2022, when it had an absolute majority.

The solution found, continued Paulo Raimundo, has "positive aspects, but it also has negative aspects, namely the huge number of teachers and educators that it leaves out".

"Therefore, I want to value the steps that have been taken. But there is still a lot to do, to recover and to demand, and the Government should not think that the problem has been solved," he said.

When asked about the choice of physician António Gandra d'Almeida as the new executive director of the National Health Service (SNS), Paulo Raimundo said he did not know him and did not want to "talk about specific people".

"That is not the issue: the issue is that the SNS's problems go beyond the structure or even who is responsible for the structure," he said, arguing that the problem lies in the underlying policies and that more health professionals and more investment are needed.

"If we do not change the underlying option, and the political option, we may even be faced with an extraordinary profile to carry out the task that the Government is assigning to him, but we will not change anything in people's real lives," he said.

The PCP secretary-general argued that a different health policy is needed, adding that "unfortunately, the Government's option is the increasing transfer of public resources to the sector of economic groups that make a business out of illness".

"This is not and cannot be the way forward. The SNS is the one that does not ask how much you have in your account, whether or not you have health insurance, does not ask what the illness is: it receives, treats, regardless of each person's condition. That is what we need," he said.

Regarding the exhibition he visited, Paulo Raimundo congratulated the Portuguese Confederation of Cultural, Recreational and Sports Groups (CPCCRD) on its centenary, which will be celebrated this Saturday at a congress in Setúbal, stressing that associations are "genuine training schools" nationwide for "thousands of young people and adults".

Stressing that there are over 35,000 cultural, recreational and sports associations across the country, Paulo Raimundo argued that these are structures that need support, since there are increasingly fewer people available to be association leaders, whether due to low wages or irregular working hours.

"We can overcome this situation by improving quality of life, responding to basic needs, addressing the fundamental issues of wages, and combating precariousness. We are contributing to improving everyone's living conditions, but also to associative life," he said.

In turn, the president of the CPCCRD, João de Matos Bernardino, stressed that the confederation represents over 35,500 associations nationwide, and has "over 450,000 association leaders".

"We are part of society and naturally we have difficulties. We reflect the difficulties that society feels and, in that sense, we wanted to acknowledge and thank the PCP's concerns," he said.

On Tuesday, the National Education Federation (FNE) and the Government reached an agreement to recover the service time frozen during the 'Troika', which will be returned over four years.

Of the total number of trade union organisations that met with the MECI, five rejected the proposal: Fenprof, Stop, Pró-Ordem, SEPLEU and ASPL.

The secretary-general of Fenprof, Mário Nogueira, said that the union had rejected the agreement because it would leave out around 25,400 teachers who are at the end of their careers.

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