We are halfway through the National Conference.

Following the preparatory phase and and the conclusions of the XXI Congress, reaffirming the communist identity, the class nature, objectives and principles, we involved the Party, we deepened the reflection, we built solutions, while at the same time that we encouraged and mobilised for the struggle, a struggle that was present here and that we salute.

We are not closing the Conference, with the adoption of the Resolution we will continue our work on each and every one of the lines of intervention now decided, take the initiative, respond to the new demands and strengthen the Party that we want even more connected to life, and from there find more strength.

The decisions we are taking strengthening the Party, a necessity for the workers, populations, youth, democrats and patriots. A stronger and more influential party is the guarantor of the rights and aspirations of the workers and people, and all those committed to the defence and deepening of democracy.

We have a huge responsibility but we are up to this responsibility. And if there were any doubts, just look at the Conference. Look at this strength and in what it reveals of willingness to move forward in strengthening the Party, making it even more the instrument of struggle of the workers and of many other strata and sectors of the population, and the element which promotes the unity of democrats in the action, for a sovereign and developed Country.

Our commitment is the same as always and with the same as always – with the workers and the people.

Our Conference was not about defending the interests of capital, increasing exploitation or plundering State resources to serve a few. Here we take the initiative for work, for the dignity of those who work, of those who produce wealth and guarantee the functioning of society and who, for that reason, at the very least, deserve respect, rights and a decent life. We took the initiative because of the urgency of increasing wages, for the end of precariousness and deregulation of working hours, for the repeal of the grievous rules of labour legislation.

The questions that need to be answered span the whole life. We do not see the demographic deficit as a fatality. We know what makes the dream of having children often not come true. Here we take the initiative for the right of children to be happy, to play, to grow and to learn. Rights only possible by guaranteeing the material conditions of their parents.

Here we affirm that this Country is also for the young and we take the initiative, with the youth, for their rights, dreams and aspirations. Here we underline the decisive role of the JCP in the mobilisation and struggle for the right to education, work and work with rights, for stability and the end of precariousness.

In the Conference there are no manoeuvres to cut pensions. Here we take the initiative for those who work or have worked a lifetime, for their right to a decent retirement and to age with quality of life.

We do not promote the business of disease, nor the control of knowledge. Here we take the initiative proposing measures to save the National Health Service; guarantee a public, free and quality education; defend public services and valorise their professionals.

Here we look at culture not as an alignment but yes as a factor of human achievement. We take the initiative to defend the professionals of the sector and open paths so that cultural production and enjoyment are within everyone's reach. We identified the Country's structural deficits and took the initiative to valorise national production, supporting farmers, fishermen, micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, placing wealth, resources, means and strategic sectors and companies at the service of development. and the interests of the workers and people.

We do not look at the climate as a new business opportunity, we know that capitalism is responsible for environmental destruction. We do not accept the privatisation of water and we take the initiative in its defence. We take the initiative for the defence of the forest, the ecosystems and the environment.

Here, problems are not treated with hypocrisy. We take the initiative for the right to housing, mobility and public transport. There is no life lived with dignity with prohibitive rents and interest that deny access to housing, there are no environmental policies without quality and progressively free public transport.

Here we do not discuss how to support or accept war paths, arms increase, sanctions, destruction and death, we do not instigate an escalation of unpredictable results. Here, with the authority of someone who has always opposed war and warned that fire is not put out with petrol, we take the initiative for peace. And from here, from our National Conference, we call on all those who aspire to a better life and a world of cooperation and peace to join us in the demand to end the war, for a political solution to the conflict in Ukraine, for the end to the instigation of confrontation by the US, NATO and the EU and the opening of negotiations with all the players, namely with the Russian Federation. The peoples want and have a right to Peace.

In the Conference, no new assaults on democracy, amendments to electoral and labour laws or blows to the Constitution were concocted. Here we take the initiative for the defence and implementation of the Constitution of the Republic and for the implementation of the rights that it enshrines. We affirm that April is more future, a future of progress opposed to right-wing policies, to the reactionary offensive, to the single thought, to racism and xenophobia and fascist hate.

Here there was no appeal to conformism or instil fear. Here, courage and strength emerged to continue to develop and intensify and encourage the struggle for rights; against speculation and the increase in the cost of living.

Here we discussed how to support and strengthen those who are at the forefront of the fight against right-wing policies and the interests of capital. Support and strengthen mass organisations and movements, with emphasis on the organisation of the working class and workers, the unitary trade union movement, the CGTP-IN and the workers' committees. Their strengthening is the task of communists acting in unity with workers of the most diverse options and origins.

We are not, nor do we want to be, alone in building a better life. We count on democrats and patriots, we count on our allies that we welcome from here, the Ecologist Party “The Greens” and the Democratic Intervention Association. We also count on thousands and thousands of people, many of them without a party, who accompany us in our daily struggle. A connection that must be developed and expanded in the most diverse areas and sectors.

Here we do not hide our own shortcomings. We identified the problems, we criticised and self-criticised, but what stands out from this entire process is the confidence and determination to overcome difficulties and take advantage of all the potential that opens up. To resist and advance. We drew the lines for strengthening the Party: advancing in party propaganda and press, particularly the Avante!; guaranteeing the strengthening of the Party's capacity and financial independence, are tasks that must be tackled.

But what will determine in the present and in the future, is our ability to give responsibilities, to recruit and to be even more rooted in the masses.

Give responsibilities to a thousand new cadres by the end of 2024, a demanding but challenging task there is so much task to be tackled and so much availability to be tackled.

Continue the recruitment campaign, taking a more determined attitude, not waiting for a knock on our door, but taking the initiative to contact and invite those who stand out in companies and workplaces to join the Party.

Connect the Party even more to life and to the masses, intervening in their problems and aspirations is a necessity of the whole Party, to start with at the base of the Party, the company cells, but also at the level of local organisations.

We have identified the needs, we have the action plan, the biggest challenge remains. With whom and how? The answer lies in audacity, creativity and persistence, and we will certainly find the solutions and availabilities for the needs we have.

Here we did not dwell on what is ephemeral, we went to the concrete problems of the real world that affect workers, small and medium-size farmers, entrepreneurs, intellectuals, technical staff, women, young people, the elderly, immigrants, emigrants, people with disabilities, as well as all those who are subject to discrimination and prejudice. All of them, and each of their problems, require our devotion and commitment.

Here we reaffirm that Portugal is not a poor country, it was impoverished but it is not doomed to backwardness, injustice, inequality, poverty. It is not condemned to shackles, to the loss of our political and economic sovereignty.

There are resources, potential, forces and the strength needed to reverse this path, and affirm the necessary alternative, an alternative patriotic and left-wing policy. This is an option that confronts the right-wing policy of reactionary forces and projects, that values work and workers, the social functions of the State and the public services, promotes national production, ensures public control of companies and strategic sectors, guarantees fiscal justice, assumes the need for a harmonious relationship between human beings and nature, frees the country from submission to the Euro and from the impositions of the EU. This is an option and alternative policy that ensures national development and sovereignty, peace and cooperation among peoples.

Our role is to encourage, mobilise and give confidence to these forces and give more strength to this option to this alternative.

We are not short of reasons to fight, and new ones are added every day, there we have more than 3 billion reasons, one for every euro of profit of 13 large economic groups in the first 9 months of this year.

But what is this crisis that we are experiencing that allows a handful to profit while the bill is always paid by the rest?

This is not called a crisis, it has another name: Injustice. Injustice that has those who are responsible and appeal to us to understand, “this is difficult for everyone”, “little is worth more than nothing”, “it cannot be everything at once”, “the blame is the war” and other lies so that the usual few collect a lot and all at once.

Can we accept that sacrifices are for many and profits for few?

Can we accept that more than 2 million people survive in poverty, 700 thousand of whom, despite working every day, cannot get out of this situation?

Can we accept the brutal pressure, blackmail and attack on wages, while at the same time the government, through the State Budget ensures millionaire profits to the economic groups of the energy sector?

No, we cannot accept injustice, nor accept that the government spills magic words: deficit, wage restraint, social concertation, agreements with the same as always, inflationary spiral, and the icing on the cake, balanced accounts. Balanced for whom and with whom? Banks, EDP, Galp, Jerónimo Martins, Sonae?

This is the political option of the PS government, very obvious in the State Budget, and it is, with more or less shouting and apparent disagreement, the bottom option of PSD, CDS, Chega and Iniciativa Liberal.

The PS, which did everything it could to force early elections, wanted an absolute majority, which, with the support of capital and its powerful means, it achieved. The results are in sight. But contrary to what was thought, the government did not have its hands completely free: it has in the struggle of the workers and populations, in the intervention of the PCP, in its different expressions, those who stand up to it.

We know that there is concern and fear about the present and the future. Understandable feelings in the face of uncertainty at the international and national levels. Inform, open paths, give hope and confidence to our people and mobilise them, turn injustice into strength to fight. To fight for a better life, the life to which we are entitled, this is our role and the Conference has given that signal.

We leave from here with a stronger Party.

A Party where everyone is one, a Party where its unity and cohesion also depend on the role, dedication, intervention and militancy of each one. The party collective is more than the sum of each one, but it is also the result of each one's commitment. Because we do not forget the role of each one in the party collective, on behalf of the Central Committee, on behalf of the National Conference and certainly on behalf of the entire party, I would like to address a word to comrade Jerónimo de Sousa,

Thank you! Thank you for your commitment, thank you for your contribution, thank you for your role, changing your responsibilities does not mean goodbye, it is a see you later, comrade.

There are those who drool and despair for the end of the PCP. Well, here's the advice, you can wait forever, because a Party linked to the workers, the populations, their problems and aspirations, determined to give them hope, a Party like that and as it was reaffirmed here at the Conference, the only thing to which it is doomed is to grow and expand its influence.

From here we call on the party collective, on all fronts of struggle and intervention, whether as elected members in the municipalities, in the Assembly of the Republic, in the regional legislative assemblies, in the European Parliament, or in the trade unions and other structures of the workers, or in the front of intervention of mass organisations from the most diverse areas, whether in everyday action, from the most modest to the most qualified contribution, may each and every one give a little more, make one more effort, gain more confidence in this struggle that we are fighting for the workers, the people and the country, for a fairer society and world.

A call that we extend to the whole of society: let's not lose hope, let's look at this path that is being affirmed here and let us gain courage for day-to-day action; let us not lower our arms, look at this Conference, its example of strength and determination, and side by side we will build more strength; let's not stop believing, let's set our eyes on this Party, let's look at the Portuguese Communist Youth, let's see the present and the project that is humanist, solidary and of the future that lives here.

We do not conform nor resign ourselves, capitalism with its exploitative and oppressive nature, which can only offer war, misery, corruption and environmental degradation, has in fact a lot of strength but not enough strength to stop the most beautiful project that humanity knows and that will place equality, justice and peace at the centre of the goals of human activity, socialism and communism, the new society, to which the future belongs.

In transforming this dream into life, in building the future to which we are entitled, we count on everyone and everyone is needed.

We count on so many people from the most diverse sectors and areas, with those who are approaching and with those who are re-approaching. We count on Party members of all backgrounds and ages.

We are counting on the 2,000 new members who have joined the Party since the beginning of last year and on the thousands who will be Party members in the coming years.

We count on the vitality, joy and enthusiasm of the JCP, of the young communists of this time in which we struggle and live.

This is a Party that counts and counts a lot. It counts in everyday life, it counts in the daily struggle, it counts, and it is increasingly necessary, for the workers, the people and the country. Moving forward is possible.

Long live the National Conference!

Long live the Portuguese Communist Youth!

Long live the Portuguese Communist Party!