Marta Temido, the Socialist Party (PS) top candidate for the European Parliament, said on Tuesday, one day before the Government approved the emergency plan for Health, after being asked if it is a "settling of scores with her own legacy", that it does not seem to her that "in politics there can be settling of scores".

"It does not seem to me that in politics there can be settling of scores. I do not believe that this leads anywhere. Seeing the solution to Health problems as a settling of scores or as a rivalry will not solve the problems of the NHS. I do not want to believe that this is possible", said the former Minister of Health, in statements to journalists, in a campaign action in Paço de Arcos, in the municipality of Oeiras.

Marta Temido also clarified that she will be "attentive" to the measures that will be implemented by the plan, although it is no longer the area where she is working. "I am just attentive, I am an interested observer, a participant, but my topics now are Europe and, at most, I would talk about the European Health Union", she added.

On the day that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, visits Portugal, the top candidate of the Socialist Party (PS) for the European Parliament also addressed the issue: "Today we have President Zelensky in Portugal and it is very important that Europeans and the Portuguese continue to be in solidarity with what is the cause of Ukraine, but then there are a number of other challenges".

Among these is, according to Temido, "the competition for resources" and the fact that Europe "is increasingly having in its institutions political forces that want to end the European project and that feed and feed on a discourse of antagonism".

"A war on European territory, a greater cohesion of the European project and the permanence of the European social project and then the issue of populism and demagogic speeches that do not solve people's problems", she summarized as the difficulties she finds in Europe.

"It is precisely because the Socialist Party and the European socialists are the only ones who can guarantee that investments are made, namely humanitarian and financial support for Ukraine", she stressed. In addition, according to the socialist, it is also the socialists who guarantee that "other economic and European policies are not left behind", which is why it is "important to vote on the 9th".

She continued: "It is very important that the European Union continues to have the availability for the emergency response on the Ukraine issue, which is what we have had, but also the commitment to what is the strategic response", which will require a different distribution of the available resources.

According to the PS top candidate, this issue of resources will require "adjustments to be made". "And we all have to make them. Other countries made them when Portugal joined [the European Union]", she also emphasized.

Regarding her career in Health, Marta Temido also acknowledged that "it would be unfair not to say that 20 years of hospital administration are also a qualification for dealing with unforeseen events, people's needs".

And she continued, highlighting the ease of "contacting them easily and managing contexts of scarce resources in which we seek to guarantee the public service".

[News updated at 2:39 pm]

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