On the 28th, the Government's proposed law on tobacco will be debated and, the following day, another executive diploma aimed at reinforcing consumer protection.

These appointments were made today at the conference of parliamentary leaders, which lasted around two and a half hours.

The PS has already expressed its intention to confirm the decree with some measures on housing - vetoed by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on August 21st -, with the favourable vote of the absolute majority of deputies in office (116 parliamentarians) sufficient to do so, and then the President of the Republic to promulgate the diploma within eight days of its receipt.

In the debate with the Prime Minister scheduled for September 27th, the rules approved in the review of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the Republic, before the parliamentary holidays, will already be in force: António Costa will return to appear every fifteen days to respond to the deputies, but with a limit number of times in which the parties can divide their speaking time, which led to criticism from Chega, at the end of the meeting.

According to the new rules, approved only with Chega's abstention, parties that have ten minutes or more of overall time (PS and PSD, in the grid foreseen for the current legislature) will be able to divide their time into seven interventions, the remaining groups parliamentarians in five and the sole deputies representing one party, PAN and Livre, in two.

Chega's parliamentary leader, Pedro Pinto, considered that, although the return of fortnightly debates “is to be welcomed, the model is not completely democratic”, questioning how the number of questions will be counted if the prime minister decides not to answer one or several of them.