Comrades,

The period since the last congress has been difficult and demanding. The deterioration of living conditions, the worsening of inequalities and social injustices, the worrying developments in the international situation, especially the pandemic and the escalation of confrontation and war, have marked these four years in a particularly negative way.

In addition, there has been a violent offensive against the Party with the aim of conditioning or even preventing our action and the affirmation of our political positions.

We faced all these battles with the courage and determination that characterise the PCP and the more than 100-year struggle of the Portuguese communists.

They wanted us defeated and in retreat, but they found us firm and united. They wanted us to be silent, cowering and isolated, but they found us non-conformist, determined, pointing the way towards the masses and confirming with them the strength and raison d'être of our convictions.

It was like that in the Party's general action, and it was also like that in the European Parliament.

Over the last four years, we have continued to be the voice of those who work in the European Parliament, intervening on the basis of a close and deep connection to the national reality, the problems of the people and the Country, the struggle of the workers and populations, in defence of Portugal's interests, sovereignty and national independence.

We have defended national production, support for investment in public services, the protection of nature and the promotion of Portuguese culture and language.

We rejected and fought against the impositions, constraints and blackmail that the European Union and its policies impose on Portugal, jeopardising its sovereignty, its development and the necessary response to national problems.

We were the voice of solidarity with the struggle and the common causes of the workers and peoples and of the break with the consensus on militarism and war.

If today more consciences are awakening to the rejection of war, it is because, in the European Parliament too, there was a collective of communists who were able to resist the dark campaigns, the slander, the falsifications and stood firm in defence of peace, cooperation and solidarity between peoples.

What pride, comrades. What pride to belong to a Party that continues to set such examples of courage and determination.

The action of our collective in the European Parliament is also a source of pride and we must continue this intervention.

We continue to be the voice of those who aspire to build a Europe of sovereign states with equal rights, co-operation, social progress and peace.

We continue to intervene to assert an alternative voice to the policies of the right and social democracy and to combat the far right, which also supports the same policies.

The idea of the European Union as a guarantor of peace, prosperity and social welfare is an increasingly obvious illusion. The solution is not to feed the illusion, but to point the way to the alternative that will make it possible to materialise the hope, expectations and aspirations of the people.

We are told that the path is one of competition with China and the United States and that it has to be taken by increasing the exploitation of those who work, favouring the monopolies and transnationals even more and concentrating even more power in the main European capitalist powers. We reject this path and point to an alternative of enhancing labour and social rights, raising people's living conditions, a development and sovereignty policy that promotes the use of productive capacities and resources and corrects the asymmetries in each country's level of development.

They want to convince us of the option of militarism, confrontation and war, and of the shift of resources from the EU budget to these ends. We will fight these options without hesitation, opposing them with the alternative of a policy of peace, cooperation and social progress and defending the fact that the priority of the EU budget should be economic, social and territorial cohesion, compensating for the asymmetric impacts of the policies of the European Union and the Euro. And we will fight to strengthen the funds earmarked for Portugal.

These and many other issues are the direction of the alternative policy, the implementation of which requires confronting and breaking with the impositions of the European Union. An alternative that we will continue to assert with courage in our intervention in the European Parliament.

Even when we are just one among many, we won't lack the confidence to raise our voice. We know that this voice has the strength of the people we are fighting for, and we know that we are raising it in chorus with this great party collective.

This is the most generous, fraternal and solidary collective, where solidarity is not an idea empty of content but a hand outstretched to lift those who fall, and an arm held to move ahead without leaving behind those who don't have the strength.

This is the collective committed to fighting for the cause of the workers. This cause that we call socialism and whose concrete meaning we build through our daily struggles.

There are many people out there who, while not giving it the same name, share their ideal with us: the age-old dream of a society without exploiters or exploited, a society of equality, freedom and democracy.

Bringing these forces together, unleashing their energies, moving them forward on the road to building socialism and communism are the tasks we have to fulfil with the confidence of those who know that this is the direction in which the wheel of history is turning.

With a change to the hymn, we will move forward with our faces held high, refusing to fall with our souls on our knees.

Long live the struggle of the workers and the peoples!

Long live the XXII Congress!

Long live the JCP!

Long live the PCP!