Statement by Jerónimo de Sousa, General Secretary of the PCP
5th May 2011
1. The pact unveiled today between the international entities entrusted of consummate the action of external interference and the political parties - PS, PSD and CDS-PP – that aspire to, in its shadow, find justification to pursue the course of sinking, impoverishment and national abdication, constitutes an illegitimate and anti-democratic act.
Illegitimate both in its content and in its political and institutional meaning. An illegitimate intervention, requested by a Government limited to mere management functions and with the Assembly of the Republic (Parliament) dissolved, in which his content affronts and violates the Constitution of the Republic.
An intervention so more illegitimate as much as PS, PSD and CDS-PP intent to, by means of an unacceptable maneuver anticipation, create consummate facts on the back of the Portuguese, when they are called upon to decide the future of the country the next day June 5 .
An illegitimacy that no future maneuvers that its promoters have in mind to rehearse will be able to disguise or render legitimate. The so-called "maneuver margin" or "positive contribution" which PSD and CDS-PP now cynically claim to justify their support is nothing but a demagogic exercise before a package that, from a structural standpoint and of its main options, is defined in detail and whose eventual changes will be in the sense of aggravating.
The PCP underlines the particular seriousness of an intervention who- by its meaning, content and future commitment – constitutes a real blow against the democratic system, the sovereignty of decision of the Portuguese people and the national independence.
2. The PCP states that due to the announcement of these measures and understanding of how illegitimate and wasteful they are, the Portuguese people have not only the right but the duty to denounce , not recognize and reject what has been forged and imposed by the collusion between the IMF, the European Union, PS, PSD and CDS-PP.
A right and a duty that on June 5 must be turned into an opportunity to say No! and contribute to prevent, by popular vote, a pact of submission, retreat and abdication that condemns the country, the Portuguese workers and people to poverty, underdevelopment and extreme dependence. Right that the PCP will assume on a firm promise to inscribe in his political action the rejection of this aggression Program and every one of its restrictive measures.
3. The austerity retreat and misery Program, now signed between the two troikas – that of the foreign imposition and that of the national submission - is the revelation and full implementation of what the PEC 4 (Stability and Growth Program nr 4) presented by the Government in last March predicted.
A Program that, beyond the blatant act of deception rehearsed by the Prime Minister, constitutes an unprecedented act in the escalation of exploitation, country sale and plunder of the national resources.
José Sócrates announced to the country what was not in this Programs wanting to hide from the Portuguese its real content – a declaration of war on workers, their rights and interests.
It is necessary to speak the truth to the workers, to the people and to the country.
What is there is facilitating and cheapening the dismissal when what is needed is to create jobs and fight precariousness.
What is there is less guarantee of protection in the workplace when what is needed is to secure protection to hundreds of thousands of families.
What is there is, in fact, the wage freeze, including of the National Minimum Wage, freezing and further cutbacks in the amount of pensions, which means the real loss in purchasing power, when what is needed is to enhance the wages and pensions, to secure worthy living conditions, fight poverty and motivate the economy.
What is there is the outrageous fiscal taxation of the social installments when what is needed is that the banking and the big fortunes are taxed.
What is there is the announcement of a brutal increase of responsibilities and of reduction of the available profit for the generality of the families with increases in electricity bills, in essential goods, transport and housing charges.
What is there is a significant penalization by the tax load, namely with the reduction and elimination of the deductions in IRS expenses with health, education or housing.
What is there is a rise in additional fees for health services; raise the pharmaceutical prices and the degradation of health care, truly preventing the access to health care for hundreds of thousands of Portuguese, especially the elderly.
All these sacrifices upon the Portuguese people will not solve any country’s problem. These are measures that, according to their own responsible, will mean economic recession (4% decline), more destruction of the national production. With these measures Portugal in 2013 will fall back to levels of a decade ago and unemployment goes from the current 800 thousand unemployed for near one million in 2013.
The prime minister said what was not in the Program but concealed, as conceal the PSD and the CDS-PP, who are the direct beneficiaries and the fate of these 78 thousand billion Euros that will only add more indebtedness and more sacrifices. Because if he said so the country would know that a part of it (12 billion) go directly to the national bank case, that the most significant part will not even enter in the country , going directly into the pockets of those who speculate with the national debt. What could remain, more than 35 billion, are presented as the state guarantee for the banks.
As well known by PS, PSD and CDS-PP what is not in the Program are the taxation measures of bankers, economical groups and big fortunes. Rather, what is the program is the direct draining of state resources for banking; preparation of a BPN divestiture at a very low price, getting the State around five billion Euros of its liabilities, after they have already buried more than 2 billion Euros; tray delivery to big business of cheap labor force and workers without rights and ready to fire; the sale off in favor of big national and foreign capital of major assets and companies with a strategic role in national economy.
What PS, PSD and CDS-PP do not say and conceal is that this loan is translated in itself by the interests associated with it, following the extortion process of the national resources, channeling funds during the next decade that will reach ten of thousand of millions of Euros, leading to an unsustainable situation.
This is the Program of exploration, injustices, impoverishment and of economic and social decline, to which the PS, PSD and CDS-PP gave their support. A program that is primarily a millionaire package of support and assurances to bankers and monopolists, of delivery of public resources into the pockets of stock jobbing and national and foreign speculators, that rewards and nurtures the drawing process that "financial markets" threw the country, that alienates the national independence and the right of Portugal to a sovereign economical and social development.
4. The situation for which the country was dragged is not random. In its origin have reasons and political persons in charge. It is the direct consequence of 35 years of vindictive counter-revolution against the achievements and the April Constitution. It is the result of decades of right wing policies, led by the PS, PSD and CDS-PP, under the service of big capital, the reconstitution of monopoly capitalism and of its interests.
It is the result of the European Union process of capitalist integration deeply harmful to the workers and people’s rights and enthusiastically supported by the PS, PSD and CDS-PP. These same parties havoc on the agenda of decline and ruin that imposed on the country gather together again, now united in a program of sale and submission of the country that, unless rejected by the workers and the Portuguese people, will mortgage for decades the future of Portugal and the Portuguese.
Throughout the process, the PCP rejected this interference, denounced the farce of the so called negotiation, questioned the government on the real financial situation and the underwritten commitments and asserted its proposals.
There is an alternative path to overcome the debt, promote development and assure a sovereign country.
A path based on a patriotic attitude of defense of the national interests - not surrender before the national and foreign financial capital.
A path that answers the problem of the debt, demanding his immediate renegotiation – interests, time limits and amounts.
A path that assumes the priority of the defense, development and promotion of national resources and the productive capacity of the country (in fisheries, agriculture, industry) and firstly, the defense and enhancement of the most important national resource - the workers.
A path capable of ensuring the development and economical growth, that values workers and his profits, streamline internal market and the activities of small and medium companies.
A path which, affronting the interests of the financial capital and of economic groups, should retake the State control of strategic sectors of the national economy, asserts the subordination of economic power to political power and secures the independence and sovereign future of Portugal.
In the moment that a shameful act of surrender and abdication is carried out in coordination by the national and foreign big bourgeoisie, the PCP addresses to all Portuguese appealing to his sense of patriotism, his sense of justice, to his determination and so that, by their action and the exercise of their constitutional rights, express in struggle and in vote his outrage at this attack against Portugal and the Portuguese.
For most conditions and difficulties that they intend to impose, the Portuguese people are not condemned to a present and to a future of dependence and submission over the interests of big capital and of the great powers.
The PCP reaffirms its deep conviction that it is possible to open new paths of sovereign development that, by breaking with the right wing policy, implement a new patriotic and left policy serving the workers, the people and country.
