Friday 8th April 2011
1- The meeting held between the Portuguese Communist Party and the Left Bloc enabled an exchange of opinions and views on the assessment of each party about the country’s economic and social situation and also about the latest developments resulting from the request of foreign intervention, with the dramatic trail of consequences it brings.
An assessment that enabled to identify aspects where there are converging evaluations. Convergence on views that also do not conceal differences of opinion and even diverging stand points on several issues, in itself a natural fact in parties with different backgrounds and projects.
2-A meeting where the PCP reaffirmed that 35 years of right-wing policies carried out by PS, PSD and CDS-PP led the country into a situation of decline and retreat. The result is clear: The country is poorer, less developed and more dependent on a course that, year after year, increases and worsens problems, where every imposition of sacrifice and injustice brings fewer prospects of solution. More unemployment and precarity close the door to the future for younger generations, more exploitation and lower wages, cuts in social care and pensions, renouncement of production, abdication of national sovereignty. Everything imposed under the orders of national and foreign capital, in a process of plunder of national wealth and accumulation of profits.
In view of the announcement by the PS government – with the support of PSD, CDS and the President of the Republic – of a request for an unacceptable foreign financial intervention involving the European Union, the ECB and the IMF, PCP also stressed that what is needed is an immediate renegotiation of the public debt [with a reassessment of the deadlines, interest rates and the amounts to be paid] and an intervention with other countries facing similar problems of public debt, aiming at a converging action to halt the current speculative spiral, stop the plunder of national resources and new attacks on the rights of the workers and the people.
3- In this framework, where each party will stand for the coming elections with their own proposals and project, PCP with the firm conviction and confidence of the importance of strengthening CDU to enforce a rupture with the right-wing policy and open the way for a patriotic and left policy, will continue and increase its political and social intervention.
A fact that will not hinder a convergence, as was namely the case at the parliamentary level, giving expression to the defence of national interests, be they by rejecting grievous policies and measures or approving others that promote economic growth, social justice and upholding of rights.
4- The current situation demands a rupture with the right-wing policy, a patriotic and left alternative policy to open the way for economic development, social progress and affirmation of national interest, and its materialisation demands forming a patriotic and left government, able to ensure a new phase in the country’s life. A government based upon political forces and sectors, democrats and independent personalities, who identify with a patriotic and left policy, supported by mass organisations and movements from anti-monopolist social sectors.
A proposal that addresses all democrats and patriots, men, women and youth who are angry with the current course of the country, those who are severely hit by this policy of national disaster. A proposal that places before each and everyone – regardless of previous options – the possibility of contributing, by their struggle and vote on CDU, for a new course in national life, free from the interests of capital and the European Union impositions, and committed to the values of democracy, freedom, progress and social justice.
