To all of you, builders of this magnificent collective endeavour, I extend my warmest greetings.

I salute everyone: those who build and ensure the holding of the Festival, the Party militants, and the thousands upon thousands who, whilst not party members, make this Festival their home.

I salute the artists, the sportspeople and all those who have helped create and take part in the Festival’s magnificent programme.

A special greeting to the young people and to the Portuguese Communist Youth; you are a living expression of this Festival, which you have made your own.

To those who are always here, to those who are returning, and to those who are here for the first time, a warm welcome to you all. This is your Festival, and tomorrow we will be by your side in life, in times of difficulty, in your dreams, in your hopes and in the struggle for a better life.

At a time when there are some who promote hatred and violence, when they seek to impose a xenophobic and racist agenda, when they want us to be divided, indifferent to the suffering of others and to blame those who are different for our difficult situation, when they want the youth to march off to war, when they want us to be resigned, without hope and bent down by injustices and inequalities, here is the Avante! Festival, here is this huge force restoring solidarity, fraternity, friendship and Peace; here is confidence in the future, collective endeavour, the ideal and the project, the dream made reality, the hope that does not wait; here is the courage and the joy of living and of fighting.

Here we are, marking 50 years of a unique Festival which, over the decades, has shaped and continues to shape the Country and successive generations through culture, the arts, the affirmation of the values of April and the great causes of Humanity.

This is not a celebration focused on the past; it is an affirmation of the future, the future we want and are going to build.

With even greater vigour and an even more beautiful festival, we shall meet again here on September 3, 4 and 5 of next year at the Festival.

We would like to extend our special thanks to the international delegations.

Thank you for your presence at this Festival, which is also yours, this moment of internationalist solidarity, of the struggle for Peace, friendship and cooperation among the peoples of the world.

Please convey to your peoples the firm commitment and determination of the PCP.

Here we stand, for the sake of Humanity, alongside all of you, in the revolutionary struggle to overcome capitalism, the greatest need of our time.

Here we stand, confronting the beast of war and the capitalist system that promotes it and feeds off it – this system of exploitation, oppression, aggression, hunger, misery, corruption, fascism and environmental destruction.

At a time when science and technology are advancing at the speed of light, when Artificial Intelligence and other technologies are coming into their own, despite being, to a large extent, fettered by the capitalist mode of production, and when levels of production never before seen are being achieved, we do not accept an increase in the exploitation of workers, nor the rise in injustices and inequalities; we do not accept that millions of people should suffer and die from diseases that are entirely preventable and curable; we do not accept that 8,000 children a day should fall victim to hunger, whilst a dozen major capitalists hold in their hands more wealth than has ever been amassed.

War is destruction; that is not the path for peoples.

There is not a single step, effort or measure being taken for Peace and an end to the war in Eastern Europe; on the contrary: not only do they seek to impose even greater transfers of public resources to the arms trade, but they are also, as we have witnessed very clearly in recent days, increasingly committed to escalating a conflict that has already lasted 12 years and which, unless halted, will have incalculable consequences.

They may be very powerful, but they cannot silence or stop solidarity.

From here we say to them: take your hands off Venezuela and release President Nicolás Maduro.

From here we salute the struggle of the Sahrawi people and that of all peoples who are resisting imperialist aggression and fighting for their sovereignty and rights in the Middle East, in Africa and in Latin America.

We reject the pressure from those who seek to ban and criminalise solidarity, we condemn and denounce the mouthpieces of horror, here we stand with Palestine, its people and its sovereign and independent State.

We condemn and will not remain silent in the face of the occupation and genocide, and a policy of state terrorism perpetrated by Israel, with the support of the US, the hypocrisy of the European Union and all those complicit in this heinous crime.

The very same forces that are attacking Lebanon and waging war on Iran, with the shameful complicity of the Portuguese Government, which has opened the gates of Lajes Air Base to the US war machine.

And however much it pains the vassals of imperialism, here we are, with our deepest and firmest solidarity with Cuba; here we are with the dignity and resistance of the heroic Cuban people; here we are with the Cuban Revolution.

Cuba faces enormous difficulties, subjected as it is to the blockade, the siege, and a veritable declaration of war by the US.

Just think what 67 years of a blockade – now even more severe – mean, imposing on the Cuban people a shortage of energy, medicines and food.

Just imagine what 10 months without fuel imports means, with 7,000 containers of food, medicines and other goods blocked and prevented from reaching Cuba.

What is remarkable is that, under these conditions, Cuba – the homeland of Fidel Castro – is holding out with dignity and resolve.

Cuba owes no one any explanation, whereas the US must explain how the world’s greatest economic and military power, which threatens and attacks everyone and stops at nothing to achieve its sinister objectives, is incapable of resolving the dramatic social problems of poverty, injustice, malnutrition, disease, violence and drug addiction to which the American people are subjected.

Cuba’s struggle is our struggle, a struggle shared by all those who embrace the values of truth, freedom, justice, sovereignty, democracy and peace; a battle in which no democrat, no anti-fascist, no anti-colonialist can fail to take part.

Comrade Miguel Díaz-Canel, we welcome the message you have addressed to us, and from here, from our Festival, I convey the solidarity of all of us, the solidarity of this people to the Cuban people.

Cuba is not alone; Cuba will prevail.

Peoples do not need blockades, sanctions, abductions, interference or aggression.

What the people and the youth of Portugal need are better wages and pensions, access to healthcare, hospitals, homes to live in, schools; they need nurseries, care homes, transport, public services, culture, science, research, production and development.

What Portugal needs is sovereignty, not to remain bowing to the orders of the European Union, held hostage to the interests of NATO and the US, and in the hands of those who think they own everything, those who amass astronomical profits at the expense of exploitation, speculation, corruption, privatisations and other economic crimes, at the expense of the brutal rise in the cost of living.

The Prime Minister may well talk of rising incomes, but his propaganda clashes with the reality of everyday life, where wages and pensions are being eroded by the rising cost of living.

We are paying more and more for fuel, food and housing to line the pockets of a select few.

For the economic groups whom the Government serves, the country has never been better off – and no wonder: their profits and wealth are growing as never before, and they can count on a Government that turns every structural problem into a pretext for channelling public resources into their coffers.

A Government that is a master of propaganda and deceit, just ask the victims of the storms, for whom aid either arrived too late or, seven months on, has still not arrived.

A Government that swears blind it will not do so but, should it have the opportunity, will do everything in its power to ensure that capital gets its hands on workers’ money and plunders the Social Security system.

Let no one be under any illusion: they will only be stopped if workers, pensioners and young people send, as they are doing, a strong signal of rejection in the face of this ongoing attack.

A Government which, in the Prime Minister’s words. in a deal that has yet to be explained, claims that electricity prices will fall following the State’s acquisition of a stake in REN [National Electric Grid].

If that is the case, why does the State, which currently holds an 8 % stake in GALP, not bring down the prices of fuel and gas cylinders?

We all pay, and tomorrow we will pay even more, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, farmers and fishermen all pay. The Prime Minister begs for understanding, whilst GALP continues to rake in unprecedented profits, profits which, if they remain in the Amorim family’s coffers, are of no use whatsoever to the Country, to the economy or our lives.

If it weren’t so tragic, one might even find it amusing that the claim of the acquisition of a stake in REN, which was quickly welcomed by the US embassy, is intended to defend national sovereignty.

But where is sovereignty when the multinational Moeve is preparing to get its hands on the Sines oil refinery, the only refinery in Portugal?

Where was patriotism when Passos Coelho’s government, the very one that current leaders of Chega and the Iniciativa Liberal supported and still miss, privatised: ANA, REN, EDP, Portugal Telecom, CP Carga, the Post Office and, at the eleventh hour and covertly, also handed over TAP?

And what about telecommunications, banks, insurance companies, transport, ports, and the storage and distribution of cereals – are these not strategic sectors?

And what can be said of the “patriotic” act of privatising TAP, which is, after all, the country’s largest exporter, as well as SATA and the profitable routes of CP?

Portugal has no need for those who hypocritically invoke sovereignty whilst handing over the Country to multinationals.

The problem we face does not stem from incompetence, smart-alecks or cases involving ministers, whose explanations leave much to be desired.

The problem lies in the Government’s policy itself, which deserves censure, just as all those who support, endorse and make viable the disastrous national policy currently being pursued are equally to blame.

The PS is also responsible, having made viable the PSD/CDS State Budget; the Iniciativa Liberal is also responsible, as the driving force behind everything that favours big capital; and Chega is also responsible, which, through a mix of lies and demagoguery, stands with the Government and this policy, always siding with the richest and most powerful on all structural issues, as was evident in the reduction of IRC corporate tax.

All of them, in turn or together, lend a hand, an arm and the whole body to the path we are on.

There is no shouting or drawing red lines; there are no manoeuvres or distractions to sidestep the central issue: politics at the service of economic groups is incompatible with meeting the needs of the majority and of the Country.

If the PS enables the State Budget to go ahead, once again it will not only spare Chega, which is up to its neck in the current policy, from having to do so, but it will also give it more space to continue deceiving the people.

But if the PS does so, it will still have to take responsibility for the dismantling of the National Health Service, the attack on public schools, real estate speculation, the attack on wages, pensions and Social Security, for privatisations, and for rising prices.

If it does so, the PS will confirm its complicity with right-wing politics and provide the PSD/CDS Government, Chega and the IL with further opportunities to step up their attack.

Capital holds a seat in the Council of Ministers and occupies the vast majority of seats in the Assembly of the Republic, seeks to plunder the Country’s resources, and wants to settle scores with the achievements of the April Revolution; to this end, it relies on a PSD/CDS government which, in clear defiance of the Constitution, seeks to dismantle rights, attack central features of the social structure won by the Portuguese people, and impose an anti-democratic vision at all levels of national life.

What is at stake is not merely the weakening of the National Health Service (NHS) and the transfer of public resources to private healthcare groups; they actually want to destroy the NHS and the right to healthcare.

What drives them is not merely the transfer of ever-increasing resources to private education groups; they actually want to overhaul the public school system, undermine teachers’ careers and replace state structures with private companies, as was the case of the exams fiasco.

The proposal that the Government pushed through with the support of the PS regarding the Single Social Benefit is not merely intended to restrict access to social benefits, stigmatise poverty or cut back on aid; they actually want to plunder the Social Security system and jeopardise pensions for future generations.

This is not merely a rejection of a public housing policy that addresses a time when housing has never been so expensive, when it has never been so difficult to rent and so easy to evict tenants, whilst the banks are posting record profits.

What they really want is to persecute tenants and strip them of their rights; they really want to dismantle State structures without which there can be no housing policy; they want to hand over land to speculators.

The agenda they seek to impose is not limited to the ongoing assault on workers’ rights and the curbing and devaluation of wages.

What they want, as revealed by the defeated labour package, is to push through an unprecedented rollback of workers’ rights and organisation and to intensify exploitation.

They are not content merely with consolidating the neoliberal course, they actually want to further increase the profits of economic groups, plunder public resources, privatise, award concessions and introduce more and more public-private partnerships (PPPs), at the outset with road projects.

What they really want is, at the behest of capital, to tear up the Constitution of the Republic.

It comes as no surprise that the PSD and CDS, Chega and the IL are united in these objectives on the basis of their reactionary ideologies; what is incomprehensible is the PS’s willingness to support an ongoing assault, which must be taken very seriously.

We are not merely faced with different options; we are facing a clear clash of projects.

A clash between those who, serving the interests of a minority, wish to complete the counter-revolutionary process, and those who, like us, are championing the values of April and the rights of working people, of those who have worked all their lives, and of the youth.

In the face of this global onslaught, a global response is required.

A response that demands the mobilisation of everyone and of all forces, that demands the use of all means and instruments, at the outset with the mass struggle, to put a stop to this policy and the actions of this Government.

This is not the time for experimentations with no clear path or future, let alone for illusions that turn into disillusionment at the first hurdle; this is not the time to fall into the trap of the ‘lesser evil’, which keeps everything as it is and further feeds reactionary forces and ideologies.

This is the time to clearly chart the new course that Portugal needs.

It is the time for courage, for mobilisation and for the struggle for an alternative that does not renounce the right of the Country and its people to chart their own course, and where workers’ rights are at the heart of political action.

An alternative that rejects the path of war, that does not abandon national interests, and that seeks to reclaim the fundamental levers of sovereignty and independence.

This is the time for the workers, the people and the youth to take charge of their own lives.

It is for this project of rupture and change, patriotic and left-wing, it is for this movement, for this new course, that we call upon all those who refuse to give in.

There is strength and there are forces to resist and prevail.

A year ago, here at this very same Festival, we declared that we would not give up and that the workers and their struggle could and would bring down the labour package, and the labour package was indeed brought down.

It is time to pay tribute to all those who have given voice to one of the greatest struggles ever waged in our country.

We salute the youth and the workers; we salute the CGTP-IN, the great and recognised trade union central, which has always stood with the workers and their rights; we salute the unitary trade union movement and all the trade unions and organisations that came together and did not waver in this struggle.

Three hundred and thirty days of struggle, thousands of plenary meetings, actions, awareness-raising campaigns, demonstrations, in the cold, in the rain, in the heat, at night, by day, at dawn, two General Strikes, courage, determination, organisation, dignity, it was this struggle, and this struggle alone, that defeated the labour package.

A year later, here we are, and we proudly declare: this great victory for the workers is also a victory for the PCP, the Party that never gave up, that never wavered, the Party of trust and confidence that never failed.

This is a celebration of the workers and of the social victory in halting the regressive agenda, of the political victory in inflicting defeat on the Government, and of the ideological victory in confirming that, with the organised strength of the workers, it is possible to win even under unfavourable conditions and however large the institutional majorities may be.

The struggle is the path to victory.

Project, initiatives, proposals: this is the PCP’s commitment to a struggle that will continue on all fronts, now with even greater and new forces.

Let all workers demand higher wages, an end to precariousness and bogus self-employment schemes; let them demand permanent contracts, the valorisation of their careers and professions, dignity for shift work, and a reduction in working hours to 35 hours.

Let us put a stop to the assault on Social Security, the attack on pensions and the raising of the retirement age; let us fight for a provisional increase of 50 euros in pensions and retirement benefits, backdated to July; let us press ahead with the just demand for the right to retire without penalisation after 40 years of contributions.

Let us create the conditions for the Country to once again welcome back those who had to go abroad in search of a better life and who are sorely missed here.

Let every young person who wishes to study and work here have access to a home to live in, stable tenancy contracts, and be spared the burden of interest rates and bank charges.

Let every father and every mother not relinquish the right to have time to spend with their children, to see all children’s rights materialised, and to have access to the increasingly urgent public network of nurseries, as well as free textbooks and school meals.

We are all summoned and duty-bound to save the National Health Service.

Let no one accept the shortage of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals; let everyone take action to reopen the healthcare services that have been closed.

Let every scholarship holder and researcher demand an employment contract; their livelihoods depend on it, as does the national scientific system.

Let every student campaign for continuous evaluation, for the strengthening of School Social Support schemes, for an end to tuition fees, and for public schools and a public education system that is free, democratic and of quality

Let Culture assert itself; let its workers achieve stability in their contracts and in their lives.

Let us fight against division; let us put a stop to the xenophobic and racist agenda. Migrant workers deserve respect, dignity and rights.

We must act, and act decisively. We can no longer tolerate the constant blackmail by the large retail chains against farmers, fishermen, and micro, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs.

Let us all mobilise. Let no one cower in the face of theft and the brutal rise in the cost of living. Let us fight for the regulation of food, energy and fuel prices, for the price of gas cylinders to be capped at 20 euros, and for VAT on energy and telecommunications to be reduced to 6 per cent.

Let no one fail to demand an increase in public transport offer, with a view to making it free.

We are here to propose, to demand, to fight; here we have a project; here, no one is giving up on the Country.

Portugal is not doomed to be a tourist resort.

We can and must produce more food, medicines, trains, ships, goods and technological equipment. Portugal can, must and is well placed to produce more and replace imports, to invest in science and technology, to value work and workers, and to support small and medium-sized enterprises, industry, agriculture and fisheries.

The challenges are many; this path is not forged in a single day, but through the daily struggle, a struggle that is well worth the effort.

Shake things up; fight for your lives.

Count on us, count on the PCP; we’ll be there in the coming days, carrying out contacts and awareness-raising activities in workplaces and on the streets, to put an end to the injustices that mark our lives. We’ll be there, confident that, with the strength of each and every one of us, a new course for the Country is possible.

Here we are, filled with an immense joy to live and struggle.

Here is the PCP, the Party we want to grow stronger and which we are working to strengthen.

A stronger PCP is necessary and possible.

The Party of the working class and of all workers, the Party of the youth.

The Party of truth, which does not yield to pressure or blackmail, which learns from life and remains determined to assert its communist identity.

The Party whose militants have shown, and continue to show, unparalleled dedication, rejecting and fighting against favours and benefits.

The Party that raises awareness, educates, mobilises, unites, organises and takes the initiative.

The patriotic and internationalist Party.

The PCP, the Party we are immensely proud to belong to, the Party that is worth belonging to.

To all those who work, who create wealth, who ensure the Country runs, to those who have worked all their lives, to intellectuals, to women, to those seeking a better life in Portugal, to everyone who is rightly concerned about the state of the Country and the world, to those who refuse to accept the status quo, to those who have lost hope, to everyone, we set you a challenge: take a stand, join the PCP, become members of your Party.

A challenge we issue in particular to the youth.

When the capitalist system robs you of your dreams and crushes your aspirations, pushes you towards individualism and isolation, condemns you to low wages, precariousness and a life worse than that of your parents, when it imposes upon you a gift of exploitation and sacrifice, and offers you lies, demagoguery and a rewriting of history, when they want you to be selfish, alone, hopeless and disoriented, when they want to send you to war, respond, respond with your defiance, with your joy, with your audacity, with your creativity, strength and energy.

To the system that oppresses you, respond with your struggle, your defiance and your dreams, respond with more JCP, with greater support for the PCP.

Respond in your daily struggle, just as you do at this, your Festival, turn your dreams into reality; take into your own hands this new world that is yet to be won.

You can count on your Party to together help you achieve the liberating goal of a new society: socialism and communism.

Long live Internationalist solidarity!

Long live Peace!

Long live the Avante Festival!

Long live the Portuguese Communist Youth!

Long live the Portuguese Communist Party!