I would like to start by thanking you for having accepted our invitation to be here at this hearing whose theme “Music, musicians and the epidemic - consequences and solutions”, is part of a broader intervention by the PCP in the culture sector. A hearing that has two main aims: to acquaint you with the assessment that we make of the culture sector in this context of epidemic and our proposals, and to listen to your opinions and suggestions for us to consider them in our intervention.

A year after the beginning of the declarations of State of Emergency and lockdown, a year without the vast majority of musicians and technicians being able to work, we are holding this hearing.

We try here to better understand the situation of these workers, listening to you, but it is clear that the epidemic has made even more visible and amplified a brutal situation of lack of rights, protection and stability for thousands of workers in the sector.

A sector with specific characteristics:

- Marked by unregulated lives in the relationship with society, namely work in the leisure time of other workers, with implications for family assistance, support and accompanying
children; working at night and on weekends;

- marked by highly seasonal paid work, this does not mean that the work is only during some months of the year. In those where visibility is less, without concerts, there is a whole amount of study, research, creation and recording, rehearsals. All of this is work and without this there is not the other. We therefore have infrequent payment for work that is regular and permanent;

- low artist fees and wages for a large part of the workers;

- lack of any kind of social protection, as a result of the tremendous precariousness and predominance of self-employment or even worse forms of payment for technical and artistic work.

This whole reality of years, which was intended to become normal and inevitable, dramatically weakened a sector and the lives of those involved in the situation resulting from the epidemic, in which all the work was cancelled, precisely a year ago, when the concert period was about to begin.

And so, overnight, thousands of artists and culture workers were left without work, without social protection, without income, in well-known situations of dramatic difficulties, to live up to their commitments either those of their homes or other basic expenses, without knowing how to meet them.

The government's lack of response - in terms of time, type, scope and amounts of the measures - contributed to prolonging the difficulties.

It is in this context that the immediate intervention of the PCP takes place, with the tabling of proposals that, if they had been adopted or, in some cases, implemented after being approved, would have mitigated the serious situations that were experienced and are still experienced. In this case, stands out the proposal to allocate emergency social support, on March 30, 2020, which would be allocated without a list of bureaucracies and hurdles, without the need to present counterparts with shows – of course impossible to achieve - and with amounts appropriate to the dimension of the situation.

We continue to see a lack of response from the government: announcement after announcement the truth is that support and measures do not reach musicians and technicians in the music sector. Even important measures included through PCP's intervention in the 2021 State Budget still do not have the full implementation that would give a better answer to the difficulties that the sector faces.

Last week we saw the announcement, once again, of the same support that had been announced two months before but that has not yet reached those who would benefit from it.

The PCP has always advocated the need to resume life.

Yes, to resume life and not make the State of Emergency the solution, when it is the exception that does not solve the essential problems caused by the epidemic.

With all the precautions, with the protection of everyone, musicians, technicians, spectators, but defending that it was not possible to continue indefinitely without the possibility of work and culture. We proposed measures to resume the activity, with the necessary public support for the reopening of the concert halls. It is not solutions like the transfer of live shows to digital networks that will solve the problem of work, nor of access to culture.

But we also fight fear and its mass-scale dissemination. In defending work and cultural creation and enjoyment, we also defend life and health in this way. We set an example with the Avante! Festival that it was possible, that it was necessary and urgent. Today, we advocate the immediate need to create the conditions for returning to work.

And we advocate that the return to work should be done with rights and fair wages. With the valorisation of workers and work in culture. We draw attention to the dangers for the present and the future of the decrease in wages and artist fees.

We know, from many other occasions, that when wages are lowered, availing of situations of difficulties, they hardly return to the figures they had previously, eternizing them at low levels. And we also say that, with the situation that was laid bare with the epidemic, it is necessary to draw conclusions: those of the need for the existence of rights, employment contracts, the creation of conditions so that these workers can be integrated into the Social Security system.

None of this will be done without the unity and mobilisation of artists and culture workers, without their involvement in defending their rights as workers and the dignity of work in culture, as well as of culture as a decisive factor for development and progress.
The country's situation requires the materialisation of the alternative to lockdown. This has not been the government's understanding. Contrary to what would be necessary, on last March 11 a plan with a high level of lockdown was presented, maintaining the closure of a significant set of economic, social, cultural and sporting activities.

A set of options taken by the government that are strongly influenced not only by strictly epidemiological criteria, but also by giving in to pressure from reactionary projects, aiming to spread fear and limiting rights and freedoms.

Despite the advances in science that now allow more effective solutions to prevent and fight Covid-19, such as vaccines and rapid and massive testing, and Portugal today being one of the countries in the European Union with the lowest rate of transmissibility, once again they insist on an option contrary to the interests of the Portuguese, and which leads to numerous problems of a different nature.

Taking measures to prevent the spread of the virus, making adequate support available to those who need it in a timely manner, strengthening the response of the National Health Service and public services and defining health security conditions for the functioning of each area or sector of activity is what is needed in these times.

More than prolonging the closure of a significant set of activities, what is needed is to create the conditions to boost economic, social, cultural and sports activities.

The PCP has long identified five essential measures to respond to what is needed:

- Strengthening the National Health Service with professionals and technical means;

- Strengthening the public healthcare structure, which is essential to carry out the screening of new cases and thus interrupt the transmission chains of the virus;

- Rapid vaccination of all Portuguese, which requires the government to purchase other vaccines already approved by WHO;

- The resumption of activities, clearly defining preventive and health protection measures and providing the necessary support for their implementation;

- Adequate and timely implementation of economic and social support for those who need it to face the problems created with lockdown decisions.

In the fight against Covid-19, Portugal cannot be dependent on other interests than those of the economic and social development of the country and the well-being of the Portuguese, contrary to what happens today with the very significant delays in implementing the vaccination plan. .

The PCP has long argued that the situation we are experiencing calls for the government's sovereign decision to purchase other vaccines already approved by WHO and other national bodies, thus freeing itself from complete dependence on the European Commission's procurement decisions based on large pharmaceutical groups, to which it is committed.

On our part, we will not drop this demand and on April 8 a PCP Draft Resolution will be under discussion in the Assembly of the Republic, which recommends a decisive intervention by the government in this regard.

As we have said, many of the problems that the epidemic shows at this moment stem from the lack of a culture policy to support to cultural creation and enjoyment and the fact that the PS, like PSD and CDS when in government, maintain commitments to the right-wing policy also in the culture sector.

For the PCP, Culture is a pillar of democracy. It requires a policy of strong responsibility and capacity for public action. It requires a Ministry of Culture worthy of the name, reversing and rectifying the action of depreciation and unaccountability of the Central Administration followed by the right-wing policy. With the reformulation of its structures and staff, effectively endowed with the necessary budgetary, technical, political and human resources with the capacity and flexibility to intervene both at national, regional and local levels, and of articulation of inter-ministerial policies.

In a context of democratisation of culture, it is essential to build an effective Public Service for Culture, a central element of public accountability for development, democratisation and cultural freedom.