The “No” in the Dutch referendum on the “Constitutional Treaty”, following the significant French “No” on May 29th confirms that, both legally and politically, the new project of the European Union Treaty has suffered a death blow and that there is a need for a new course for the European process of cooperation and integration.

The Dutch “No” to a treaty that proposes to strengthen and institutionalize the EU’s neo-liberal policies of social regression, federalism and militarism constitutes a new contribution to the struggle, which has to be intensified, for a Europe of progress, peace and cooperation among sovereign and equal in rights countries and peoples.

The PCP salutes the comrades from the Socialist Party, the Dutch anti-capitalist force of the left with which it has ties of friendship and cooperation, and whose contribution was decisive for the victory of the “No”.

The PCP reiterates its position that, after the French “No”, now followed by the Dutch “No”, there is no sense in holding a referendum in Portugal on the present text of the Treaty, and even less in a hurry and without enabling the information and clarifying debate that the PCP always defended.

The PCP strongly opposes the project of trying to coincide the referendum and the local administration elections, a project that once again has the support of the PS [Socialist Party] and the PSD [Social-Democrat Party], confirming the identification of these parties with the core policies of the right that have destroyed the productive tissue of the country and compromised the sovereignty of Portugal. This coincidence, that the President of the Republic is ready to make viable, would constitute a very serious anti-democratic operation attempting to condition and manipulate the free will of the Portuguese people.