Jeronimo de Sousa presented the main conclusions of the meeting of the Central Committee, which examined the political and social situation of the country and the General Strike of the past 24th November.
At its meeting today, the PCP Central Committee analysed Portugal's political and social situation, with special reference to the 2011 State Budget and its serious consequences, as well as to the November 24 General Strike and its significance. The CC assessed the evolution of Francisco Lopes's [presidential] candidature, and also debated and adopted working guidelines for the commemoration of the PCP's 90th anniversary.
The Central Committee considers that the adoption of the State Budget – following a shameful horse-trading bout between the PS and PSD, with the President's blessing – is one more worrisome step on the road to Portugal's economic and social retrogression. It will bring on a whole new slew of difficulties and worsen the nation's problems.
The set of new anti-social measures, investment cuts, privatisations and savage tax raises – on the heels of similar ones already being implemented – are the yeast for a policy that will inevitably drag the country into a deeper crisis and into a demand for a new wave of sacrifices from the broad mass of working people and of middle strata of the population. This is already obvious, both in the expected rise in unemployment - confirming its upward trend - and in the most recent economic indicators which confirm that economic stagnation will linger on.
It is also within this predictable situation of worsening conditions that we must view the unacceptable pressures coming from the European Union - that Portugal's government has just accepted - to renew the anti-social offensive. This time the excuse is a need for structural reforms with more changes to labour legislation, with the obvious goal of deregulating working hours even more, of lowering pay and of liberalising dismissals. The Portuguese government accepted that this offensive be announced by a foreigner, thus placing itself in a degrading position of clear submission. This is an offensive that seeks to take the attack on the National Health Service to new heights - with further privatisation of health services and the implementation of even more curbs on communities' access to health care –, as well as to destroy what remains of the public transportation sector and services.
The Central Committee cannot but notice the campaign that – using Ireland's plight as an excuse – is being waged to get people to naturally accept to give up one more chunk of our country's economic sovereignty, to either the IMF or the European Commission or the ECB.
In this situation, [PSD leader] Passos Coelho's and the PSD's advance offer (and proclaimed availability) to govern the country together with the IMF is totally unacceptable, since all political institutions are under obligation to uphold national sovereignty. It constitutes a despicable stand – regardless of whether it is implemented or not – that reveals grovelling political opportunism on the part of those who, believing that they may come to power, are already shirking responsibility for the policies that they intend to enact and that they know would involve new and even heavier sacrifices for workers and for the people.
But worse still is their availability to govern, not for the Portuguese people and for Portugal, but rather for alien interests, handing the nation over to third-party tutelage and dealing one more blow against national sovereignty. This is all the more obvious insofar as we know that the misnamed "aid" to the people of Ireland – together with the "economic governance" measures meanwhile adopted by the European Commission and Council – constitutes a dangerous, fascist-leaning and centralising new turn on the part of European capitalism's decision centres.
Tagging onto the coattails of a crisis whose origins lie in the policies on which the capitalist European integration process is based, the directorate of powers, the European Commission and Council are intensifying the process of concentrating economic and social power. A veritable steamroller is being run over national sovereignties and rights – all of it led in such a way as to sustain the increasingly unsustainable Economic and Monetary Union. They save banks by sacrificing peoples! This sequence of events is showing how correct the PCP's warnings were when we stood up against the road taken by the European Union and against Portugal's membership in the EMU (the Euro).
As we have repeatedly stated, Portugal's endebtedness is a problem that is far from new. It is one of the most serious outcomes of the national disaster and surrender policies that the PS, PSD and CDS parties (with the President of the Republic's support) have imposed upon the nation, impoverishing it – particularly by degrading and liquidating the national productive apparatus.
Once again we reaffirm the importance of the set of proposals presented by the PCP during the debate on the State Budget which are in line and consistent with the process of rupture and change that the country needs and would contribute to increase the State’s revenue and, at the same time, help stimulate the economy and promote a combat against social and regional inequalities. And in a very short time, will surface PCP’s ground proposal to set Portugal producing to solve the country’s problems.
The Central Committee welcomes the success of the General Strike held on last 24th. which represented a powerful answer to the brutal offensive by the PS government and the PSD, and to all those, as is the case of the President of the Republic, who have sponsored the path of national disaster imposed on the country. Held in the framework of a very strong ideological attack, the General Strike expressed by the support of more than three million workers, was a strong answer to the campaign that has for months been launched to impose the idea of the inevitability of the measures being taken against the workers, of the futility of its realization.
The Central Committee appreciates the intervention by CGTP-IN and its cadres and activists who made this action a vigorous answer of refusing the present course, but also of hope in the possibility to create the necessary alternative.
Regarding the international situation, PCP’s Central Committee analysed, in particular, the economic and financial crisis, the struggle of the workers and the peoples in Europe and the recent G20 and NATO Summits. In this context, it is clear that the international situation remains marked by the worsening of the international economic and financial crisis and the heightening of a true social war against the workers and the peoples, aiming a historical regression of the social and labour rights.
Concerning the G20 Summit, it resulted in a complete failure of its goals, confirming the existence of economic and monetary tensions and conflicts, who’s deepening could lead to unpredictable consequences for the workers and the peoples, the weaker and more dependent economies, for international peace and security. All over Europe the workers have been mobilizing against these goals, building a wave of social and mass struggle that we vigourously salute.
The Central Committee draws attention to the seriousness of the decisions of the NATO Summit held in Lisbon which represent new threats and dangers against the peoples of the whole world. The NATO Summit resulted in the strengthening of an Organization that, with every step, becomes a more aggressive alliance, responsible for several outbreaks of instability and tension that characterize the present.
Reiterating the demand for the dissolution of NATO and the disengagement of Portugal from its military structure, PCP strongly salutes the exemplary intervention and effort of mobilization that the Campaign “Peace Yes NATO No” carried out and which appeared so expressively in the Demonstration “Peace Yes NATO No” with more than 30.000 people participating.
On the subject of the presidential elections and two months away from it, it is clear that the candidacy of Francisco Lopes, by its intervention, clarity of standpoints and project, is a factor of the affirmation not only of the indispensable exercise of presidential duties that the respect that the Constitution demands, but also of the pressing change and rupture with the path of decline that the right-wing policy has imposed on the country.
The Central Committee rejoices with the wide support of the workers and the people gathered by the candidacy of Francisco Lopes and the growing depth and convergence of democratic sectors, as witnessed by the support of outstanding personalities and of the Democratic Intervention Association and the Ecologist Green Party.
The candidacy of Francisco Lopes denounces, unlike all others, the consequences of a State Budget that, sponsored by the [current President and candidate] Cavaco Silva and accepted as necessary by [the other candidates] Manuel Alegre and Fernando Nobre, rejects without hesitation the position of foreign submission and surrender to the financial markets expressed in various statements of support of the euro riding over national interests by the current President.
Finally, and taking into account that on March 6th. 2011, the Portuguese Communist Party will commemorate 90 years of existence, it was decided that the central axis of these commemorations will be to continue and deepen the action «Forward! For a stronger PCP», together with a vast number of initiatives throughout the year, all representing a great actions of the masses.
