The law that brings back a 35-hour week, after the previous government put it up to 40 hours on troika suggestion, was passed by all the left-wing parties and rejected by the two centre-right parties which were in the coalition government that introduced the 40-hour week.
In a note justifying his decision to approve the new law, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa referred to a possible “violation of the principle of equality” as the law does not cover the private sector too and there are many in the country who do not agree that two people doing the same job for the same wages can have two different working weeks just because one works for the state and the other for a private company.