Press Conference, Jerónimo de Sousa, General Secretary, Lisbon
Monday, December 16, 2013
The Central Committee analysed aspects of the national situation, marked by the worsening of the economic and social situation, the consequences for the country resulting from the approval of the State Budget for 2014, a true instrument of plunder of the workers and people, a new package of measures of social terrorism which will further impoverish the Portuguese and the country.
An instrument of exploitation and liquidation of rights. A Budget which, at the service of economic and financial groups, sharpens injustice and inequalities.
Instead of the inevitabilities that they proclaim, what the country is witnessing is a clear option, programmed and misleading, by the current government. Clear because every euro stolen from the wages, pensions, and incomes from micro and small entrepreneurs or farmers will only serve to leave untouched the interests of the monopoly groups operating in Portugal. Programmed, because under the excuse of the crisis, what is being implemented, is an old aspiration to settle accounts with the rights and gains achieved with the April Revolution. Misleading, because presented as a way to “liberate” the country from the troika and the heralded “return to markets”, it is, after all, a way to perpetuate for the coming decades impoverishment and austerity as a way of life and future of the country.
The reality that Portugal today faces – a manifestation of more than 37 years of right-wing policy, of the process of capitalist integration in the European Union and the very nature and structural crisis of capitalism - reflects the course of economic decline and social regression and which, first with the Growth and Stability Pact (GSP) by PS and later, during the last two and half years, with the Pact of Aggression that PS, PSD and CDS accepted with the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, factors of strong sharpening and acceleration.
Government, monopoly groups and those who serve them, launch a campaign of lies, manipulation and deception of reality. It is the fraud of the “Portuguese miracle” based on gross statistical manipulation: they use the more than 130 thousand workers who in 2013 left the country to emigrate and a real destruction of jobs and proclaim that unemployment is falling; portray as success a positive balance of trade when it really reflects a dramatic fall in domestic consumption and investment, signs of poverty and backwardness; gamble with the chain variations and seasonal data of the GDP to sell as positive a situation of economic regression that puts the GDP at the level existing in 2000.
A policy and a government that, if not defeated, threaten to destroy the living standards of the overwhelming majority of the population, devastate the national economy, undermine sovereignty, independence and future of the country.
The Central Committee of the PCP reaffirms that, in view of the course of exploitation, social decline and regression to which the country has been subjected and the projects that try to perpetuate it, the dismissal of the government and call for early elections becomes a decisive and pressing issue.
More than ever it is urgent to break with the right-wing policy and open the way for the construction of an alternative, patriotic and left-wing policy. A policy that is capable of freeing Portugal from dependence and submission, recover for the country what belongs to the country, hand back to the workers and people their rights, wages and income.
In view of the violent offensive carried out in these last two and half years against the rights of the workers and population, the attacks on the democratic regime and national sovereignty, the struggle of the workers has been a determining factor to halt the right-wing policy and its consequences.
Struggles in the companies and workplaces against the theft of wages, in defence of jobs and work with rights, to improve working conditions, against the privatisation of public sector companies, like the Viana do Castelo Shipyards, and the improvement of public service, like those taking place in the public passenger transport companies and CTT-Postal Services.
A struggle that had three key moments in the “March for April, against exploitation and impoverishment” which took place on October 19; in the “National Day of Outrage and Struggle”, held last November 26 and had national expression, both called by CGTP-IN; and the demonstration called, for the first time, by all organisations representing professionals from security forces – actions which constituted courageous and determined affirmations of dignity and patriotism.
The PCP appeals to the workers and people, to respond to this offensive by intensifying the struggle to solve their real problems, to begin with, the fighting action called for this week by CGTP-IN, with emphasis on the vigil this coming Thursday in Bélem [near the Presidential Palace] – demanding a rupture with the right-wing policies and early elections, an important step in the struggle for the patriotic and left-wing alternative.
The future lies in the hands of the workers and people.
On the eve of yet another European Council and given the undisguised economic and social crisis of the European Union, the heightening of the neoliberal, militarist and federalist pillars can only lead to the worsening of the economic and social problems and jeopardize national sovereignties.
The ongoing process of deepening the Economic and Monetary Union; the guidelines of economic governance, European semester and 2020 Strategy; the “budgetary Treaty”, the Banking Union and Single Supervisory Mechanism for Banks; the deepening and widening of the Single Market to new areas of profit; the rules of macroeconomic conditionality in the recently approved allocation of European funds; the cut in the already ridiculous EU budget, all together represent an attempt of “naturalization” and institutionalization of the “adjustment” and perpetuation of the ongoing social regression in the EU, a process whose sole aim is to serve the interests of big monopolies, specially to keep up the aid of millions to the banks.
The elections to the European Parliament, to be held on May 25, thus represent an important political and electoral battle which, in articulation with the development of the struggle, will contribute for the urgent defeat of the government and a rupture with the right-wing policy.
The elections to the European Parliament represent an opportunity to strengthen CDU and contribute to give strength to the construction of a patriotic and left-wing policy, an essential condition to ensure the defence of the interests and rights of the workers and Portuguese people and to affirm national sovereignty and free the country from the present course of social regression, economic decline and dependence.
In a situation that, both PSD and CDS on one side, and PS and others who accompany it invoking namely “Europeism of the left”, will present the deepening of European federalism as an alleged solution to national problems, this very federalism that led the country to a situation of dependence, CDU assumes itself as the most solid reference to defend the interests and rights of the workers, people and national sovereignty.
Strengthening CDU and the number of its members in the European Parliament is thus the best guarantee for the firm defence of the interests of the Portuguese, to minimize the constraints and negative effects of integration, to use in favour of social progress all means and possibilities, to fight against supranational impositions and limitations on democracy and the will of the people, to act specifically and in articulation with the workers and peoples of other countries to break the process of European capitalist integration. A presence which, unlike any other MPs, will voice the aspirations of the workers and people and will find in the deep attachment to the concrete problems of the country, the element and central reason of its intervention in the European Parliament.
In its meeting, the Central Committee adopted two important resolutions. One on the strengthening of the party organisation and the other on the 40th anniversary of the April Revolution, which will stress the topicality of its achievements and values and their projection as structuring features of Portugal with progress, developed and sovereign. During 2014, the PCP will undertake a national action focused on the projection of the values of April and the affirmation of a patriotic and left-wing policy. An integrated and articulated action to prepare the European elections, the celebrations of the 40th Anniversary of 25th April and the intervention and struggle for a definitive defeat of the Pact of Aggression, the dismissal of the government and a rupture with the right-wing policy, in the affirmation of the rights and raising the living standards of the workers and people, a economic and social development and affirmation of national sovereignty and independence, essential factors to solve the problems of the country.
The Central Committee also decided, within the context of the leadership work, to elect to its Political Committee, comrades João Oliveira, President of PCP’s Parliamentary Group in the Assembly of the Republic and Manuel Rodrigues who, at the beginning of next year, will assume the responsibility of Director of “Avante!” newspaper.
