Comrades
I salute the XXI PCP Congress at this special and truly complex moment for this Country and mankind.

A complex situation due to the capitalism’s structural crisis, we face the increasing pressure of imperialism in order to impose its rules and an ideology to legitimate new and old ways to hoard gains and wealth, of exploitation and dominance through threats, blackmail, sanctions, blockades, and all kind of interferences, aggressions and war against states and people who resist, with a complete lack of respect for International Law, as we have seen in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America or Europe.

A complex situation considering the economic and social storm approaching exacerbate by the clumsy, and in many cases criminal way, by which some governments are managing the sanitary crisis, contributing to the acceleration of new pandemics like unemployment, poverty and inequalities, not investing in public policies crucial for the people such as health, education, housing and employment with rights.

It is within this context, that in several countries, people are resisting blockades, blackmail and aggressions like socialist Cuba that resists the blockade intensification, like Bolivarian Venezuela that resists the coupist destabilization or like martyred Syria that faces aggression while trying to rebuilt the country; or those that struggle against new forms of colonialism like Palestine or Western Sahara; resistance and struggles that affirm alternatives and achieve important victories such as the ones in Bolivia and Chile recently.

Complex situation also across the ideological field where the growing control over communication, by preparing and justifying, through new and traditional media, the imperialist political and military actions – like the NATO’s reinforcement and other military organizations including the European Union, always demanding more funding for weaponry and new interferences – aiming to impose their ideology, hindering the workers’ and creators’ contribution to a vision that doesn´t erase the historical truth and does not alienate people from the society’s pressing issues and their fight to solve them.

It’s within this crisis and violent offensive that it is even more urgent to strengthen the international solidarity and anti-imperialistic fight, as PCP and other unitarian organizations, where communists participate, are trying to achieve, developing and articulating convergence and cooperation in the actions of many diverse groups, in a broad anti-imperialist front, where the defence of principles of the Charter of United Nations and, in Portugal, of article nº7 of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic,are of particular significance.

A special mention is owed to the fight against militarism and for the defence of peace, that the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC) has seached to broaden, throug street and/or public sessions denouncing war and the OTAN/USA and European Union agression, expressing solidarity with people victim of interference and war, advocating a culture of peace with artists, associations, schools and unions, coming together in Peace Concerts, art exhibits and more.

There has been a search for cooperation and convergence, an example of this is the Meeting for Peace event, held here in 2018; this event was organized by CPPC together with 12 other organizations, in which more than 50 organizations and more than 700 people participated.

The next Meeting for Peace, is under preparation, and will be held on Jun the 5th, in Setúbal, seeking to widen this support basis, with the conviction that a better world is possible, ending the dangerous militarization of international relations and the race to arms, driven by the USA; USA has been retreating from important treaties that aim to limit the nuclear arsenal, and thus threatening world safety and peace.

We shall continue to consider Portugal’s signing and ratifying the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons of high importance, we shall strive for the Portuguese government to comply with the Portuguese Republic´s Constitution, defending controlled general disarmament, the dissolution of the political-military blocs and a collective security system able to ensure world peace and justice in the relations between peoples.