Comrades,

As we hold our Congress, we are approximately nine months away from the 2025 local elections, which are expected to take place in September.

There isn't much time, which means that we have to make decisions, create dynamics, continue to intervene in the local institutions and, above all, be out on the streets in constant contact with the people and their concerns.

The task at hand requires choosing the candidates, presenting them and making them known, as well as planning our action. We wish to run in all municipal bodies and in as many parishes as possible. To achieve this, we need to make progress in identifying those who we would like to see take on this responsibility.

Now is the moment to engage all those who align with us and are fighting to fulfil our project for a better life in our land; all those who are committed to defending a project that places the people and their interests at the centre; all those who agree with the principle of neither benefiting nor losing out and who identify with a project that is based on direct contacts; all those who value local government workers because they are those who guarantee the responses, because all the achievements of democratic local governments bear the unquestionable contribution of municipal and parish workers. They are the ones who, every day of work, are in touch with the people. They are therefore an important part of our work and they must be in permanent contact with elected representatives at all times.

Many of those who today know and recognise the value of the honesty and work of the elected representatives of the PCP and CDU must be invited to join us in this battle, must be contacted to contribute, whether with ideas, criticism or even by joining our lists. Each of them must be encouraged to join us in this electoral battle.

The political scenario that we currently face presents new and tougher demands. Firstly, because in 2021 a number of political forces did not yet have the conditions in place to present lists. The wide dispersion of political forces, the support for false independent candidacies known as ‘citizen’s lists’, the rise in support for reactionary and fascist forces, as well as the agreements that have been announced and those that are still not public, as well as the current PSD/CDS government and their likely alliance, in some cases with their proxies, are all projects that counter the interests of the people.

We will be facing a policy that silences, or even downright misrepresents and lies about our activity. This demands a wide-ranging campaign of clarification, highlighting what we have done, what we have proposed, what we have achieved, and emphasising the value of our work, whether in office or in opposition.

The systematic attack launched against local government by limiting its autonomy, as well as the transfer of burdens to local government in almost all areas of life - be it education, health, social, transport or even housing - almost always without the mechanisms or funds needed to cope with these new responsibilities, does not just distance the [central] Government from providing the response that is its duty as, on the other hand, it shifts the focus of public protests towards local authorities.

The implementation of this path is one more step towards weakening, dismantling or even eliminating national policies that seek to combat injustice, inequality and asymmetries. Also because, apart from our opposition to this course, we must bear in mind that not all local authorities have the same resources. In Lisbon, for example, 86 million Euros of IRS revenue is being wasted (it will be around 270 million over the current mandate), most of it channelled into the pockets of those with the highest incomes, while the investments made in urban hygiene are well below this sum and the Carris [Lisbon bus company] budget is being slashed. These are class choices that work against the interests of the people in general.

However, the attack on the democratic local power of April does not stop here. Nor does it end with the previous setbacks, associated with the process of abolishing parishes. This process, even beyond the express will of the people who fought and are fighting to reinstate abolished parishes, continues to encounter obstacles in the many manoeuvres that are now being used to direct this process.

It is a continued attack on the administrative and financial autonomy of local government which has been occurring since its very creation, not least because part of that April project that our Constitution contains has been stripped of a structural element. The basis of proximity and connection to the people provides for an administrative component that allows each region to define its own path, a regionalisation that has yet to be implemented and that is enshrined in April and in the Constitution.

Comrades,

If the times in which we live in are challenging, we do not lack the experience, confidence and work to face them.

We know that asserting the municipal project of PCP and CDU is the key to a better life. This is known by the people where the CDU is now in office. This is known by the people who are fighting, with the elected representatives of PCP and CDU at their side, to improve life in their municipalities, parishes and neighbourhoods.

We have this legacy and this recognition, and we must maximise it, not wasting any opportunity to affirm our project.

That is why we are here, we will be here and we will strengthen our presence among the people. Listening in order to learn, being present in order to get to know them better, intervening in order to solve problems. We need to tell each and every one of the men, women and young people we meet what we have done, to give them an account of our work, to let them know about our proposals and to invite them to join us in building the better life to which we are entitled.

Let us take to the streets to intervene in every problem, from the smallest to the largest. Let us energise the struggle to achieve a better life for the people. Let us affirm that we have, more than any others, the work and the competence to do better.

Comrades, it is up to us to build a better life, to live better in our country. It is time to continue the fight for better public services, for access to culture, sport, leisure, transports, clean, organised and safe cities, that can make those who live and work there happy.

It is time to value local government workers.

Work, Honesty and Competence. It is and it will be on the basis of this motto that we will wage the battle in defence of democratic local power, in defence of the interests of the people and the territory.

Long live CDU!

Long live the struggle of the workers and the communities!

Long live the PCP’s 22nd Congress!