This position was defended by António Leitão Amaro, at a press conference, at the end of a Council of Ministers in which he announced the revocation of measures taken by the previous socialist executive at the level of local accommodation or forced or coercive leasing. Right from his initial speech, the Minister of the Presidency denied that the PSD/CDS-PP executive is now following a path of liberalization with the adoption of market deregulation measures. "Nothing of the sort. We have replaced a punitive, unfair and investment-stifling vision with a moderate, balanced vision, which recognizes that there are areas of greater urban and tourist pressure where more balanced rules may make sense," argued the government member. According to António Leitão Amaro, the government, at the forefront of this issue of regulation of local accommodation, "is committed to local authorities and their capacity to make rules and to be the ones to oversee their application and implementation, allowing for differentiated but more harmonious solutions to be found". Regarding the revocation of forced or coercive leasing, the Minister of the Presidency said that this measure by the previous executive "was highly penalizing of private property" and "even punished those who invested in the market". On the other hand, the government approved the creation of a legal framework that allows for a semi-automatic injection of vacant or underutilized public properties into the market, with a view to their use for housing purposes. "We trust in local authorities or in private developers. Together they can develop projects for the use of these properties. On the same day that we revoked coercive leasing, which punished private property, we are setting the State up to be an example," he pointed out. In addition to the Council of Ministers having approved a change considered relevant to rental support, extending it to new contracts after 15 March 2023 but involving the same property and the same tenant, the extraordinary contribution for local accommodation has now also been revoked, among other "regulatory prohibitions". "We want a new balance of rules. Confidence in investment had been betrayed by the action of the State, which adopted very aggressive options for Portuguese people who invested their life savings in local accommodation. The previous government chose local accommodation as an unfair target to excuse its inability to stop it," accused the Minister of the Presidency. Read Also: Government will create a regime for the use of vacant public properties (Portuguese version)