“100 commitments for the family”: that’s the programme presented to Portuguese families by the prime minister Durão Barroso in recent days, with the aim of “combating the exclusion of the elderly and helping those families in which both husband and wife are workers”. According to Margarida Neto, national coordinator of family policies, these 100 commitments may be considered a “point of departure for the future”. In fact, as Neto commented to the Ecclesia Press Agency, “it’s the first time that the government had pronounced on the family. The family has always been considered by the present government as the privileged area for the realization of the person and the transmission of values”. Some problems of particular relevance at the present time are taken into consideration in the programme: the protection of maternity and paternity, the defence of life, the responsibility of parents for the education of their children, the creation of effective conditions for reconciling family life and professional life. Nonetheless – declared Fernando Castro, chairman of the Portuguese association for large families (APFN) – the “100 commitments do not contemplate any tax relief for large families”. For this reason the association will present two documents on “Family and tax regime in Europe” and “Value added tax” in the days ahead.
