Always with the workers and the people, for Democracy and Socialism
Lisbon. 6th March 2016

Here we gather, celebrating the 95th year from the creation of our Portuguese Communist Party, with the awareness of our reason of being, with the conviction of our ideals and objectives, in an atmosphere of great trust, vitality and hope in the future.

We celebrate, therefore, the ninety fifth anniversary of our Party with the joy which is part of us and that comes from belonging to a Party with a unique history in the Portuguese political parties landscape – a Party with a long life serving the workers, the people and the Country.
We celebrate the anniversary of our Party in the middle if an intense activity and a complex and demanding political framework, as demanding has always been the struggle Portuguese Communists have battled with the workers and the people, since the distant year of 1921, which saw the birth of this almost centenary Party and a qualitative leap in the process of the development of the Portuguese worker’s movement.

A Party which was born, by the will and the decision of the worker’s class and the Portuguese workers, and as a direct consequence of its struggle, its social and political maturity and to materialise the ancient dream of emancipation of the workers and the freedom of the oppressed.
It was born to be a different organisation and to reaffirm a political project different and opposed to that of the domineering classes.
It was born to materialise an autonomous intervention by the working class as an historical subject of social transformation and to build a new society free from the exploitation of men by other men – socialism and communism.

It was born and honoured along its life these founding plans, keeping and defending its distinctive features, its identify, firm in its ideal, not abandoning its principles, its intervention and action based on its ideology – Marxism -Leninism, always enriched by experience and life, never renouncing the perspective and the objective of building that new society.

Nine and a half decades later, and looking back at the path followed, we see a Party with a remarkable history, an unprecedented path in defence of freedom, democracy, for a project for the future, linking generations of fearless fighters, fighting small and big battles and always present in the decisive moments in the life of our country.

A Party of the anti-fascist resistance. A Party of the Revolution of April and its achievements. A Party of the resistance against right-wing policies and capitalist recovery. Party of great causes and every struggle against exploitation, oppression and inequalities, always present in the moments that call for resistance, transformation and progress.

A Party that from the moment of its conception was always able alongside the workers, the people and its struggles, to overcome the most serious obstacles, the most dangerous circumstances, the most severe challenges and gathering all strength, knowledge and dedication of its militants in the realisation of the goals which better serve our people and our country.

A Party resulting from the sacrifice and selflessness of its fallen heroes, the comrades which along decades have faced repression, the many thousands who, with an intense and dedicated activism were the backbone of an exceptional intervention which reflects in today´s vitality and strength of the PCP.
To all of them our tribute and the determination of this great collective which is the PCP to take on with honour its past and revolutionary legacy! This is the Party which has mattered at all times and has been decisive in spining the wheel of history towards progress, the Party which matters for the defense of the interests of our people and our country.
It was with the initiative of this Party that matters for the solution of the internal problems, and as a result of the election of the 4th October and the defeat imposed by our people of the government PSD/CDS, that it has been possible to find a political solution to put a stop to a government and a brutal policy against the interests of the people.

It was with the decisive role of this Party and with the important achievement with the struggle and the vote of the Portuguese, which allowed a significant change in the composition of the Parliament, that we are able to say, that today, at the moment we celebrate this anniversary of out Party, we are in better conditions to carry on with the struggle we have been undertaking to demand the rupture with the right wing policy and for the reversion of the path to the exploitation and impoverishment which has been followed by successive governments and particularly over the past four years.

It was with the commitment of this Party, which is indispensable and vital to the life of the Country and to the defence of the workers and the people, that it has been possible for positive measures to be taken, for the restitution of the rights and income extorted during these years of SGP and Troika, namely when it came to wages, taxes, social benefits, education and health amongst others.
In these past few months since the defeat of the PSD/CDS government, it has been possible, although to a limited extent, to address the most immediate needs of the workers and the people and this cannot be undervalued.
Measures such as those which have allowed to put a stop to the concession and the privatisation of the inland passenger transport companies; change the system of protection of people with disabilities; revoke measures which were offensive to the dignity of the teachers and adopt means of evaluation with a view to the success and educational learning; put back the pension supplements to Government Sector workers and put back the holidays, amongst other measures.

Measures such as those which have been adopted, albeit behind what would be fair and defended by us, namely eliminating pay cuts to Public Administration workers; the progressive reduction of tax returns surcharges with the view to its total elimination; opening the way to a 35h working week for all Civil Service workers and a raise of the Minimum National Wage.

The political solution resulting from the joint position between PS and PCP and the measures to it associated, materialised and in completion, has met a united resistance and opposition by the great national and transnational capital and the its subservient power, which do not admit the smallest measure or the smallest sign of change against the path to disaster and national downfall that has been imposed to the country.

We all know that it is a solution limited in its scope due to restrains and options of the PS itself, but the great power and the ones that serve its interests do not, nevertheless, stop using the huge vast amount of resources to them available, not only to implode but to try and stop the materialisation of any positive measure, no matter how small, that threatens its project of social and civilizational regression.
Their aim is very clear: to force to kneel down those who dare to question their dominance. They must be supreme and forever maintain their policies of exploitation, impoverishment and national submission and for that, they have the help of PSD and CDS.

That´s why we can see them, in this particular moment when the State Budget 2016 is being discussed, manoeuvring and summoning their tentacle – like net of influences, namely institutionalists, to discredit any and each solution which is beyond the canons that serve their interests – the interests of the great economical and financial powers and the directory of the great powers – resourcing to the most unspeakable forms of pressure and blackmail.

All this hullabaloo, all this friction around the Budget, promoted by the guardians of the “dictatorship of deficit”, Budget bothers those nostalgic of a policy of concentration and centralisation of wealth, of the exploitation and impoverishment no matter at what cost and as fast as possible.
What they can´t stand is their knowledge that this Budget is different from the one PSD and CDS would present were they government.
Yes, comrades, were PSD and CDS today still government, what would be debated in Parliament would be one more Budget escalating inequities and social inequality.

A Budget which would deepen the hardship for most Portuguese, just as were all Budgets of the PSD/CDS government.
It would be a Budget of “more of the same old”, of more cuts in earnings and labour and social rights.
A Budget which would penalise the low and medium incomes as the Budgets of the PSD/CDS have always been.
It would be one more Budget to extend the ruinous path which has led the country to a steep economical set back and impoverishment.
Were today PSD and CDS in government, the Portuguese would witness, not an increase in social benefits as it is now the case – an increase or a surcharge in child benefit, Social Integration Income, Senior Citizens Pension Supplement or unfreezing retirement pensions, but, with growing concern, new cuts in social benefits and the imposition of another 600-million-euro worth of pension and retirement cuts.

Instead of the restitution, now in 2016, of the stolen income, they would see PSC proposing to keep those cuts up to 2019.

Instead of the measures for tax allowances addressed in the Budget 2016, such as the introduction of tax deductions per child or ancestor under personal income tax, updating personal income tax bands, expanding expenses related to disability, we would see a follow-up of favouritism of tax benefits for economic groups, which the PSD/CDS government planned to keep om promoting, namely by means of further reductions in Corporate Tax and VAT, making tax policy even more unequal and unfair.

Instead of the prospect of an improvement in working conditions, of looking for solutions to fight job insecurity namely in Public Administration, as it is this 2016 Budget plan, the Portuguese would keep listening to the ever rehearsed speech of the labour market rigidity and being met with new proposals to attack labour law, further dismissals, listening to their tired arguments in favour of freezing the Minimum National Salary, the withdrawal of bank holidays and the increase in working hours.

Instead of measures to support families in need, measures such as those which are now being established, such as the protection of the family home from attachment orders or the introduction of a safeguard clause for the Municipal Tax on Homes (IMI), we would be confronted with the social insensitivity which prevailed over the past few years and led thousands of families to despair, to financial stiffness and complete financial ruin, with thousands of people evicted from their homes.

If the proposed Budget was still that of a PDS/CDS Government, the Portuguese would be grieving over new and more dramatic cuts in the state´s social functions and on the public services which are essential to the people, and not taking measures to refrain their degradation, namely in the health and education sector, with new measures to protect the right to health with the recruitment of more doctors and the reduction of user charges.

It is for all this, that it is fair to look at this Budget, which has still not been sealed, not only for its worth, including all the positive measures it includes, but also for what it prevents. And what it prevents is the deepening of the disaster the country was led to and the agenda of impoverishment of the workers and the people which was being followed.

It is known that this is not our Budget, it is a document under the responsibility of PS, even though it expresses or might come to express the commitments undertaken under the Join Positions framework. It is and will be defined by the essential principles and options of its authors.
However, even though it is not our Budget and has measures we do not agree with, it is, nevertheless a Budget with signs of inversion of a path which cannot be underestimated. It is a Budget, which dares, despite the government accepting criteria and guidelines set by Brussels, to question the so called Structural reforms, which dares to give back wages and rights.

A set of reasons for the PCP to vote in favour of the Budget, all things considered.

A pledge which of course does not overlook contradictions and limitations.

The options of the increase in fuel tax, insufficient taxing on huge housing property, the lack of structural response to the problem of the debt, the failure to consider an increase in the real value of pensions or the maintenance of restrictions imposed upon workers and services in public management and state owned enterprises are some of the elements that mark our concerns and disagreement.

A budget that could and should go further in promoting the development of the country and improving the living conditions of our people if freed from the European impositions and other external constraints, namely those resulting from the debt burden, the submission to the Euro and the monopolist capital that dominates the country.

As it is our commitment to the workers and the people, the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) is intervening in the work of specialty of the state budget for 2016 so it will respond as much as possible to aspirations and expectations, secure new rights and incomes, and give answers to the more immediate problems.
Although with full awareness that the solution to the country's problems must absolutely imply breaking with the right policy and its constraints, we continue to be, as we have always been, engaged in the search for solutions and in taking measures that correspond to legitimate aspirations for a better life of the workers and the Portuguese people

I wish to emphasize here, among the many proposals presented by the Parliamentary Group of the PCP, those which regard to: an extraordinary increase of 10 euros in retirement pensions; an extraordinary measure to support the long-term unemployed without unemployment benefit; the progressive gratuitousness of school books; the reduction of the special payment on account paid by small companies; measures to support the arts, artistic activities and cultural heritage; the reduction of the municipal tax rate on houses paid by the families; alongside with taxing upon the large capital, be it by an extra tax on houses worth more than one million euros, or an increase of the extraordinary contribution upon the energy sector.

We will follow the path to honor the word given in the convergent position and above all we will honor our commitment to the workers and the people in defending their interests and their legitimate aspirations for a better life.

We continue to work on it, being also aware that the life and the solution to the problems of the Portuguese people and the country, are not confined, despite its actual importance, to a budget, and that our action and intervention are not finished with its preparation.

The severity of the problems that attack the life of the Portuguese cannot dispense but rather demands, a permanent initiative and action of our Party and the struggle of the workers and of our people to overcome it.

This means more intervention, action and struggle within and outside the institutions, businesses and workplaces in the most various activities and fields, in the Parliament, with new initiatives and proposed solutions, but also in the Local Government, social and mass organizations, where life and the problems of the workers and the people ask for the rational and consequent intervention of the communists.
More initiative and more intervention of our Party, but also a greater struggle of the workers and the people, to consolidate and push further new progress.

From here we salute the important set of ongoing struggles of workers and the population aimed at the protection, reestablishment and conquest of rights, with special reference to the actions developed by the workers of Petrogal, of the Public Administration, of State Owned Enterprises, the SMTUC (Transports of the City of Coimbra) , Dan Cake and many others, as well as the days of struggle already in preparation, particularly the celebrations of March 8 - International Women's Day; the initiatives of the students of secondary and higher education on the 10. and 15. March; the struggle of the milk producers on the 14. and the demonstration of the working youth to be held in Lisbon on 31. March.

A very special greeting to the CGTP-IN (General Confederation of Portuguese workers) for the success of its XIII Congress which was a great affirmation of the power of the workers and an important event in the life of the country, as can be seen by the hundreds of delegates and guests, the decisions taken and issues voted, an extraordinary success, with a very significant impact on national and international levels.
It is with the firm belief that the future is built with the daily fights that the PCP is at the moment already developing a national campaign on the rights of workers “More Rights, More Future and No to Precariousness”.

A campaign that is integrated in the ongoing permanent struggle we take for the valorization of the work and the workers and their lives.
This is a battle that demands to be fought on all fronts. On the workplace where forms of precariousness prevail. Organizing and uniting those who are in this situation in the demand for solutions. Denouncing the abuses and winning all workers, without exception, and the public to combat this social scourge.

But a battle that requires also to be waged at institutional level, with proposals and measures to reverse permissive labor laws that systematic attack the workers' rights.

Proposals and measures such as those that the PCP has just proposed to the Parliament and that are part of a set of legislative initiatives to combat precariousness that we want to see discussed and approved. Among them there is the proposal to establish a National Plan to Combat Precarious Labor, to combat illegal employment, false working relationships, the abuse of temporary and part-time work contracts, and also payment discrimination.

It is necessary and urgent to promote job stability, fulfilling and enforcing the right to work and job security stated on the Portuguese Constitution. And in that the Portuguese workers can count on the PCP!
But if the fight is indispensable to defend, restore and conquer rights, it is also necessary and essential to affirm and defend the general interests of our people and our country.

Interests that, as reality has been showing, are increasingly being attacked and undermined by the set of external constraints and limitations to which Portugal is subject - either by extortion and blackmail of the so-called markets and its internal agents, or by way of a set pressures, impositions and maneuvers of the European Union whose institutions and leading centers do everything, with the active collaboration of their national acolytes, to maintain the instruments of economic dominance of the big capital and the major European powers and to perpetuate the course of exploitation, impoverishment and submission of countries like Portugal.

A set of regular hassling and blackmailing that show well the real nature and objectives of the capitalist integration. That show us what the benefits are and who benefits from the so called rules of the European Union, the Euro and the treaties. Rules and treaties that are always presented as sacrosanct and unchangeable but that, as the British case is demonstrating, are not so when it comes to going against the interests of the big capital and the major powers or when they choose to make policies of the European Union even more reactionary.

30 years past, reality shows us that if we, in fact, want to develop Portugal, if we really want to have a society where social and labor rights are fundamental pillars of a developed economy and a democracy truly worth that name, then this implies a breach with the European Union of the big capital as a unifying element of the patriots and democrats truly interested in the sovereign development of our country.
In these 95 years, as we have already stated, we are proud of many accomplishments.

And one of them is having foreseen and forewarned that the integration of Portugal in the EEC, the European Union and the Euro would be contrary to our national interests; it would mean the weakening of the national productive apparatus and Portugal would be put in a subordinate position within the European Union.

After 30 years, here is the reality to give reason to the PCP. How far are the siren songs of Portugal in the forefront and of a European Union of cohesion and solidarity! See what we have today in the European continent plunged into a crisis with no end in sight.

Cohesion? No! We have divergence, inequalities and worrying and dangerous reactionary processes that feed from them. Solidarity? No! On the contrary, enforcement, domain, neocolonial arrogance and blackmail!

A crisis that is not unique to Europe. On the contrary. It is the expression in the European continent of the structural crisis of capitalism that is increasing and dragging with it an extremely violent offensive of the imperialism that is felt on every continent.

War, terrorism fueled by the most sinister imperialist strategies, encouragement to the most profound hatred and division in various regions of the world, the emergence of fascism, push the world into a barbaric situation that can have unimaginable consequences for all mankind. A violent offensive that is confronted with the struggle and resistance of the people.
This reality brings to light of the political and ideological struggle, the question of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the need for a correct definition of methods, priorities and steps of the struggles of the Communist in the historical epoch of transition to socialism we are living now.

It is bearing this framework in mind that, in Portugal, we continue our struggle for the affirmation of an alternative to the exploitation and impoverishment policy of national decline and ruin.
This fight is even more necessary as it is clear throughout the evolution of these months, and despite the positive developments, the limited nature of the current political solution and the need to give more and more strength to a true political alternative, the patriotic and left policy the PCP offers to the Portuguese people.

A policy that the PCP reaffirms as absolutely essential to break the power of the monopoly capital and the limitations and constraints stemming from the capitalist integration of the European Union and its instruments of domination.
A policy based on economic growth, bigger national production, job creation, increased wages and pensions, the restitution of individual and collective rights of employees, on the defense and affirmation of the social functions of the state and public services, on the recovery to the state control of strategic sectors, starting with the banking system, with a fair fiscal policy that would alleviate the taxes on workers and the people, and heavily tax profits, dividends and financial transactions of the big capital, that would list the urgent renegotiation of the debt as a condition for development, and recover economic, fiscal and monetary sovereignty.

A patriotic and left policy which is not only essential, but necessary and possible.

Possible if following up and enacting proposals, as are for example, those which we have just announced to the country.
Proposals to solve the debt problem that we have been discussing and deepening , and we will soon present to the Parliament, but also to attack the gangrene that has been extending in the financial system and that has ruined public finances without solving any of its problems or the development of the country.

So, together with the debt renegotiation, the proposal of the PCP concerning the public control of the banking also gets redoubled actuality, as well the proposal we have recently presented for the nationalization of the New Bank (Novo Banco).

Yes, comrades, it is possible and viable to start another way by mobilizing the resources that debt renegotiation will permit to set free, with a fiscal policy we suggest, through a correct taxation on dividends, financial speculation, movable assets, with the recovery by the public control of strategic sectors for the development of the country, as the case of the banking system.

The patriotic and left policy the PCP defends is a condition to ensure Portugal with a future of social justice and progress, a sovereign and independent country.

A policy that assumes an increasingly greater actuality and that is an intrinsic part of the struggle to fulfill the Party's program 'An Advanced Democracy - The April values in the Future of Portugal ".

A program that points out the way for a Portugal with a future and projects this heritage from April as realities and objective needs in the future of our country.

The Program for an Advanced Democracy is a proposal that responds to the specific needs of the Portuguese society for the current historical stage.
An Advanced Democracy, that, in its four areas - political, economic, social and cultural - and its five components, develops, affirms and incorporates a certain regime design and the definition of a democratic policy characterized by building a social project whose construction entirely corresponds to the interests of workers and of our people.

Political democracy that means individual and collective freedoms, pluralism, elections and direct participation of the people.
Economic democracy that implies the subordination of the economic power to the democratic political power, social ownership of basic and strategic sectors of the economy, the coexistence of various economic experiences, the involvement of employees in company management.
Social democracy that includes labor rights, decent living conditions, extensive access to social services and benefits. A cultural democracy which translates into the access of the masses to cultural fruition and freedom, and the support to cultural creation.

The advanced democracy the PCP presents the Portuguese people - with its anti-monopoly and anti-imperialist nature - presents in its implementation and in the deepening of the democracy it embodies the path to socialism communist generations have fought and still fight for.
A fight that requires a Communist Party that does not abdicate of being so, determined, combative, aware of its role, firm in its ideal and in the affirmation of its transforming and revolutionary project.

A Party that the stronger it is, the wider and firmer steps will take towards the fulfilment of this goal, conquering and overcoming each one of the steps the objective conditions and the struggle impose.

This year, on the 2, 3 and 4 December, the XX Party Congress will take place, at the Municipal Complex of Sports - City of Almada, under the slogan "PCP. With the workers and the people. Democracy and Socialism”.

The Central Committee has just launched the preparation of the Congress with the approval of a Resolution where the methodology, phasing and objectives are defined.

There it is set a number of core subjects for the initial discussion on the content of the Theses - Draft of Political Resolution -, defined some guidelines that form the basis for reflection and discussion by the organizations and militants, and set up three stages, opening the debate to the whole Party, calling the group of activists and organizations to participate in this unique, broad and deep democratic process.
It begins, thus, a process that will take us, by the end of the year, to the approval of the proposals to be submitted for consideration and endorsement to the delegates to the Twentieth Congress, and we, from now, ask organizations and Party members and the whole party collective to contribute with their experience, thoughts and opinions, to the success of the XX Congress.
The process of preparation and achievement will inevitably insert itself into the overall work of the Party, integrating their specific requirements with the development of the mass struggle, the strengthening of its organizations and unitary movements, the political intervention, the unitary political work, the internationalist tasks and the strengthening of the Party.

The strengthening the PCP, an essential, indispensable and irreplaceable party, is of utmost importance.

Reinforcement with the completion by the end of 2016 of the Resolution "More organization, more intervention, more influence - a stronger PCP" by resolutely advancing in the accountability and assumption of responsibilities by more staff; by strengthening the organization and intervention next to the working class and workers in companies and workplaces; more attention to working with anti-monopolist classes and social strata; with the promotion of mass organizations, with the intensification with the workers and the masses; with intensive intervention in the ideological battle; with the intensification of propaganda and dissemination of the Party press, and in particular our Avante !.

Reinforcement with the enlargement of the Party’s own financial basis, namely continuing the national campaign to raise funds "More space. More Party. A Future with April "and ensuring its success, as we are now starting the preparation of the 40th edition of the “Festa do Avante!“to be held on 2., 3. and 4. September 2016, and that will integrate in its project the occupation of Quinta do Cabo.

Reinforcement of our intervention and our action, implementing the wide range of initiatives underway and planned, in particular the action directed to pensioners about their rights and living conditions which starts on 17. March. But also stimulating the initiatives to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the "Avante!", the 95th anniversary of the PCP, the 40th anniversary of the Portuguese Constitution, the 25th of April and 1st May.
During these 95 years our Party has fought, resisted, advanced and it remains firm in its intervention and objectives.
All this was and is possible because it assumes with conviction and honor its communist identity. It assumes its nature of a party of the working class and all working people. It assumes its operational principles deriving from the creative development of democratic centralism, based on a deep internal democracy, with one sole general orientation and a single central management. It assumes its theoretical basis of Marxism-Leninism, its character as a patriotic and internationalist party and its goal of building a new society - socialism and communism.

At a time when you are approaching the celebration of the International Women's Day is just to highlight the heritage of reflection, struggle and project of the PCP in defense of women's rights and their liberation struggle. During its 95 years, the PCP has analyzed the situation of women in Portugal, denounced the specific inequalities and discrimination that affect them, pointing the way to abolish them.
In the Parliament the intervention of the PCP is unique as confirmed by its constant involvement in the multiple dimensions of discrimination thus building a solid legislative building in defense of women's rights in various areas. A consistent involvement, coherent and continued in the context of its participation in the Parliament.

From here, we wish to greet the successive generations of communist women that along the 95 years of the PCP have given the best of their lives, of their militancy, to the intervention of the party collective and the struggle of women in defense of their rights and for their social emancipation.

We are sure that Party members - women and men - will contribute to make the celebration of March 8 a great journey and struggle of Portuguese women, not only through the implementation of the Party's intervention on this date, but also helping the success of actions led by various organizations, namely the unitary trade union movement and the Democratic movement of Women.
On the day we are celebrating the 95th anniversary of our Party, let me also endorse a very special greeting to young people who have in the JCP, the organization of the Portuguese Communist Youth, the necessary and essential fighting instrument in the defense of its most genuine aspirations. The JCP that we are so proud of!

It is looking ahead and with confidence in this great and consistent party we continue today our struggle.

It is looking ahead and with confidence in this great and consistent party that we presently continue our struggle.
This Party carrier of hope that does not give up or rests to achieve Portugal with a future!

This Portuguese Communist Party which intervenes with an unshakable confidence based on its history its design and its strength.
The party we, communist militants, are very proud of taking part in, assuming the legacy left to us by successive generations of communists and inspired by the example of Alvaro Cunhal.

This party anchored in the belief of the value and actuality of a project that pursues the noble ideal of emancipation and liberation from the exploitation of workers and peoples, because we want a better life for those who work, because we want Portugal to be a developed, independent, fairer, more united country of progress for its people.

This party always determined and combative in fulfilling its role in defending the people's interests, for a patriotic and left policy for an advanced democracy, socialism and communism.