Meeting between the Leaderships of the PCP and the Communist Party of Spain
Friday, March 18, 2012

The Portuguese Communist Party and the Communist Party of Spain today held a meeting within the framework of their relations of friendship and cooperation. The Meeting took place at the headquarters of the Portuguese Communist Party and was attended by Jerónimo de Sousa, General Secretary of the PCP and José Luis Centella, General Secretary of the PCE.

The PCP and PCE draw attention to the violent anti-social, anti-democratic and militarist offensive by imperialism that grows with the worsening of the crisis of the capitalist system.

In this framework, we draw special attention to the dangers arising from the policies that in our countries, and in the European Union, are deepening the spiral of austerity, impoverishment and indebtedness in the various States of the European Union, and show the failure of the pillars of the process of capitalist integration in Europe and create situations of a real social catastrophe, as witnessed by the recent historical levels of unemployment in Portugal and Spain.

This path only serves the big economic groups, big financial capital, main imperialist powers and a European Union at the service of big business, increasingly led by the directorate of big powers headed by Germany. These policies only serve those who are responsible for the crisis and due to it continue to accumulate enormous wealth at the cost of impoverishment, unemployment and hunger of millions of human beings and the crushing of the sovereignty and independence of the States.

The PCP and PCE affirm that what the situation demands is a real rupture with these policies, a turnabout in the path followed up to now that will enable an alternative of social progress, economic development, cooperation and peace.

A rupture that is not compatible with the propaganda around an “intelligent austerity” or rhetoric on “growth and employment” that do not question the fundamental guidelines followed until now by the European social-democracies or the right and set down in the so-called “Budget Treaty” and the straitjacket of economic governance.

A progressive way out of the crisis that is not compatible with operations of political cosmetics and a course that has already proved and continues to prove is not in the interest of the workers and the peoples and which, as shown by the mass and social struggles in several European countries and the recent electoral processes in France and Greece, is rejected and condemned.

A rupture and a progressive way out of the crisis that repeals the so-called “budget treaty”; an end to the pacts of aggression like the one being applied in Portugal; the abandonment of the so-called “structural reforms” of an anti-social and neoliberal nature like those being applied in Spain and Portugal; measures that ensure a public control of the banks and strategic sectors of the economy; measures that valorise labour and the workers and bet on social progress as an essential factor for economic development.
The PCP and PCE reject the ideological campaigns that try to present as inevitable the present course of impoverishment and exploitation.

They affirm their full confidence in the strength of the unity of the workers and the peoples of Spain and Portugal and the priceless value of their solidarity and cooperation. They affirm their commitment in boosting the popular struggle, reiterate their call to the furthering of processes of struggle in different aspects and express their support for the class-oriented trade union movement.

In view of the June 20 and 21 NATO summit in Chicago, the PCP and PCE reiterate the importance of continuing the struggle against the renewed militarist offensive by imperialism, the dissolution of political and military blocs and the end of foreign military bases. They condemn the new arms race; demand the end of the missile defence system, namely the installation of facilities of this system in the foreign military bases installed in Spain. They demand the end of the wars and interference manoeuvres in countries like Afghanistan, Libya, Syria or Iran.
In the context of strengthening internationalist solidarity among the workers of Spain and Portugal and furthering the cooperation among communists, both parties agreed on an agenda of common initiatives, including the holding of two public events, with the participation of Jerónimo de Sousa and José Luis Centella, to be held on June 15 in Lisbon and June 22 in Madrid, These initiatives seek to contribute to strengthen the confidence of the workers and peoples of Spain and Portugal that it is possible through their struggle to overturn the present course of decline and exploitation.

The PCP and PCE affirm with conviction that with the unity of the workers and the people and their solidarity, that it is not only possible to defend their rights but to fend off the attacks now under way, and achieve new gains and transformations of an anti-capitalist and anti-monopolist nature, on the road to build socialism, the increasingly necessary alternative to an increasingly exploitative and oppressive capitalism.