Portuguese PM threatens to resign if teachers' service time bill approved

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said Friday that he has informed President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa that his government will resign if the amendment over accounting of teachers' time of service is approved in a final vote.

The prime minister made the warning in a statement after an urgent meeting with the president on Friday afternoon.

"Under this circumstance, I understand that it is my duty to inform the president and the head of the parliament that the final approval of this parliamentary initiative will force the government to resign," he said in a televised address to the nation.

The political crisis occurred after the parliamentary approval late Thursday, with the support of all opposition parties in the parliament, to grant teachers salary increases held back over several years.

Costa said that the total count of teachers' time of service raises questions whether the amendment violates the constitution, adding that it is a measure "socially unjust and financially unsustainable".

Costa called an emergency government meeting on Friday morning to discuss the new situation before he met the president.

Wages for all of the country's civil servants, including teachers, were frozen during the country's debt crisis.

With an economic recovery, the government has agreed to count the service time of the teachers as 6.5 years, rather than over nine years which the teachers' union has proposed and the parliamentary amendment approved on Thursday.

Several unions expressed their hopes that any pay hike for teachers should include all public sector workers.

Costa said that the enactment of the amendment would cost more than 300 million euros (336 million U.S. dollars) between this year and 2020.

He added that the full unfreezing of teachers' careers entails a permanent annual expenditure of more than 800 million euros, making the government budget unbearable.

Parliament will hold a full vote on the measure on May 15.