A warm greeting to everyone present here in this combative initiative, promoted in the framework of the Confederal Group of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) – The Left in the European Parliament, to which the PCP’s MPs belong.
I would like to particularly welcome the presence of comrades Bert de Belder, from the Workers’ Party of Belgium, Vera Polycarpou, from AKEL, Eduard Navarro, from the Communist Party of Spain and Cyril Benoit, from the French Communist Party.
I would like to express our deep gratitude to all for their participation, which greatly enriched this initiative. We learnt more about the reality and problems faced by the workers and people in their respective countries, we learnt more about their important struggles, to whom we offer our solidarity.
As you will surely understand, on this occasion, I would like to reaffirm the solidarity of the Portuguese communists with the struggle of the Cypriot people. A struggle for the reunification of their homeland, against the Turkish occupation – which this year marks 50 years –, a struggle whose solution lies in the creation of a Bicommunal and Bizonal Federation, with a single sovereignty, a single international personality and a single citizenship, with political equality.
The participation of comrades from Belgium, Cyprus, Spain and France is an expression of the cooperation between communist parties and other left-wing forces in Europe, particularly within the framework of the GUE/NGL Confederal Group of the European Parliament, which was created in 1994, with a particular contribution of the PCP.
A parliamentary group that, respecting the natural differences between the delegations that make it up, has assumed important positions and political proposals that respond to problems felt by the workers and people and gives voice to their legitimate aspirations. Positions and proposals that gain even more value, necessity and meaning in the context of the current situation in Europe.
From here I want to reaffirm to you that you can count on the commitment of the PCP to continue this experience of cooperation at an institutional level, in compliance with the confederal principles that have ensured the functioning and continuity of this parliamentary group for around 30 years.
Please convey to your Parties that the PCP is determined and confident in the struggle to defend the interests of the workers and the Portuguese people, in the struggle for a Europe of peace, cooperation and progress, for a Europe of workers and peoples.
When listening to our international guests, we see great points of contact with the reality of our Country, with the problems that affect our people, with the struggles that are carried out here in Portugal.
Here, as in these countries, economic groups, monopolies and multinationals find in the European Union an important instrument at their disposal.
Here, as in these countries, the effects of European Union policies fall on workers and people. Effects that are felt particularly strongly in Portugal.
Contrary to what the intense propaganda of the dominant ideology says and omits, the EU funds and the so-called “bazookas” do not compensate, as they never have, for everything that has been given up and is being given up in our development.
Since 1996, Portugal has received in net terms 72 billion euros from EU funds, but has seen around 126 billion euros in profits, dividends and interest leave the country. Between what comes in and what goes out, Portugal has been increasingly harmed.
With the Euro, the Country only experienced economic stagnation, wage restraint, fewer public services and investment.
The Country lost monetary sovereignty with all the consequences that are there, and which were very evident during the Troika’s Aggression Pact or in the way it is expressed today in the brutal increase in interest rates decreed by the European Central Bank.
Brussels' Common Agricultural Policy pays some not to produce, favours large landowners and forces the country to buy from abroad what it previously produced.
There are 5.82% fewer farms in Portugal today than 10 years ago. 52% fewer than in 1999. 80% fewer than in 1989.
In 2022, farmers' income fell by 11.2% while profits from large retail soared – for Jerónimo Martins and Sonae they were around 3 million euros per day.
The EEC/EU paid to uproot vines and olive trees, to afforest agricultural areas, paid not to produce and then paid without the obligation to produce.
And the truth of these “aids” from the EEC/EU, which only unhelps us, but which greatly helps those who sell us what we used to produce, is that 7% of its beneficiaries receive 70% of the aids.
This is a wonderful deal, there is no doubt, but it is for a few, it is not for the people, it is not for the Country.
And this shows very clearly the type of constraints we are faced with and from which we need to free ourselves.
Complying with EU guidelines and at the hands of successive governments, the Country handed over each of its strategic companies to foreign capital and now looks at TAP as another business opportunity for the multinationals that share the skies of Europe among themselves.
EFACEC, handed over to the Germans from Mutares, together with 200 million invested by our own State, is another clear example of how national interests are harmed with the approval of the European Commission.
And now there is a new directive that gives the European Commission full powers to impose on the Country rhythms for debt reduction, greater tightening of public spending for the social functions of the State, less investment, more cuts in public services, more privatisations, attacks on labour rights and social protection, more wage restraint.
And of course, the new PSD/CDS Government is now looking for justifications for not fully implementing the promises it made to various sectors of workers.
There it is undoing, one by one, the illusions that it spread among those who, driven by a fair desire for change, thought it possible that the solution of their problems would come from the right.
Whether PSD, CDS, Chega, or IL, all of them, in one way or another, were associated with and applauded the politics of the troikas, the cuts in wages, pensions, social benefits, the increase in injustices and inequalities, the concentration of wealth, the increase in poverty and emigration.
And as we warned, here is the new Government showing how negative it is.
Postponing for 2028 wage increases that are necessary now.
Promoting even more fiscal injustice, significantly lowering taxes, not for those who work, but for economic groups and those who have the most.
Opening the doors of healthcare to the private sector and to those who make illness a business.
Protecting banks and speculators and making the already very difficult situation of thousands of families who are having great difficulty paying for their homes even more infernal.
None of this violates European Union rules, on the contrary, this is a policy encouraged by Brussels.
With each passing day it becomes clearer how right-wing policies and European capitalist integration are two sides of the same coin. The fight against one cannot be carried out without fighting the other.
The truth is that we need to break this cycle that deprives our Country of our wealth, particularly young people who, not finding here the living conditions they desire, emigrate, taking the training and knowledge they acquired here to other countries, separating themselves from their family and friends.
We need to recover fundamental instruments of our sovereignty. Monetary, financial, budgetary and exchange rate instruments. And to eliminate obstacles to development, ensuring public control of strategic sectors such as banking and energy.
There's no point crying wolf. It is for our people and their interests that we guide our actions, not for directives from Brussels.
It is for our people and their interests that we place the need to break with external dependencies, reduce structural deficits and ensure development and sovereignty.
If we want a Europe of Peace, cooperation and progress, we need to break with the current course, and intervene firmly and consistently to transform reality.
This leads our opponents to spread lies and distortions about our positions, which is important to fight.
We defend, not the interests of those who incite and prolong war, but on the contrary peace, the political, diplomatic and negotiated solution to conflicts, respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter, the Final Act of Helsinki and the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.
War is defended by all those who are willing to send more weapons and prolong the conflicts, whether in Ukraine or in Palestine, those same people who are willing to do anything to escalate the war. And from here we say again, it is necessary to put an end to the war, it is necessary to put an end to the massacre and genocide of the Palestinian people, to recognise the State of Palestine, to put an end to the crime carried out by Israel. The hypocrisy and cynicism that pervades the European Union in relation to wars reveals who is truly benefiting from them.
We do not defend isolationism as our enemies falsely accuse us, but on the contrary, we want the expansion of our international relations. Relations based on peace, cooperation, solidarity, friendship and fraternity, not with this or that, but with all the peoples of the world.
Isolationists are all those who hide behind the dictates of Brussels and Washington, who seek to impose, restrict and determine those with whom we can or should relate.
Antagonistic and incompatible are the interests of the workers and peoples, and the interests of economic groups, monopolies and multinationals.
For a Europe of Peace, cooperation and progress, it is necessary to opt for the workers and peoples, against injustice and inequalities, for the fair redistribution of wealth, for the fulfilment of rights, for the improvement of the living conditions of all those who have suffered exploitation – we do it and as we have witnessed here, we are not alone in this fight.
The development of the mass struggle will be the essential and decisive factor for the change we need. It has been what has conditioned and limited the onslaught carried out by the servants of big capital. Not infrequently, it has even achieved some limited or temporary advances in our lives, which we should never take for granted.
But if there is a force capable of breaking down all barriers, it is the strength of the people, as proven by this great achievement of the Portuguese people, which is the April Revolution, whose 50th. anniversary we celebrate, whose values demonstrated to be very much alive in this vibrant rally of ours.
Long live internationalist solidarity!
Long live the friendship and cooperation between peoples!
Long live Peace!
