News Conference, Bernardino Soares President of PCP´s Parliamentary Group, António Filipe, MP and Agostinho Lopes, MP, Assembly of the Republic
Friday, 17th. June 2011
On the eve of the opening of the Assembly of the Republic, PCP fulfils its pledge by presenting a draft resolution of the renegotiation of the public debt. An initiative that, rejecting the course of disaster they want to impose on the country, shows an alternative path for economic growth, progress and social justice.
Faced with a strong speculative attack on the Portuguese public debt, with a process of extortion of national resources, with a dramatic social and economic situation, with a stranglehold imposed by the creditors and a policy of submission of the country to their interests, on 5th. April 2011, PCP put forward a proposal to begin an immediate renegotiation of the public debt. A process which, combined with several other measures in defence of national interests, represented a patriotic and left-wing answer to the course of national disaster that was being imposed.
Rejecting this way out to the problems of public debt and financing of the country, PS, PSD and CDS chose to persistently defend the interests of the economic and financial groups, opening the door to a foreign intervention by the IMF, ECB and EU which, with its process and content, constitutes an illegitimate programme of submission and aggression against the people and the country that the new PSD/CDS government is preparing to apply.
More than two months later, the demand for an immediate renegotiation of the Portuguese public debt, due to the situation the country finds itself, or the consequences of the implementation that the programme by the Troika brings to the people and the country (including Portugal’s ability to meet its foreign commitments and funding needs) gains redoubled opportunity and support from various quarters. In this sense, PCP, following its pledge to the Portuguese people during the election campaign, formally presents to the Assembly of the Republic a proposal for renegotiation of the public debt, combined with other measures aimed at economic growth, creation of jobs, defence of national interests and sovereignty.
GUIDING LINES OF PCP´S PROPOSAL FOR THE RENEGOTIATION OF PUBLIC DEBT AND DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL PRODUCTION
1. Immediate renegotiation of the public debt with the creditors of the Portuguese State to be formally requested by the government within thirty days and which should ensure the following conditions:
(i) undertake a previous formal, complete and rigorous assessment of the size of the debt, pinpointing its source and process, as well as the nature and type of creditors, and forecasting its evolution, with or without the renegotiation, to be carried out within fifteen days by the Ministry of Finance together with the Bank of Portugal, presenting the results to the Assembly of the Republic;
(ii) a debt service that, through the negotiation of its amounts, terms and rates, is compatible with an economic growth of around 3%, assuming to this effect setting a period of grace to be defined and indexing the amount of the interest to be paid yearly to service this debt to a previously defined percentage of the yearly exports;
(iii) the safeguard of the part of debt held by small savings (the so-called non-tradable debt) and that which is owned by the State´s administrative and business public sector, which will not be subject to renegotiation, ensuring them the compliance of the negotiated conditions:
(iv) the guarantee of the Portuguese State’s liquidity in complying its short term commitments and duties, using solutions such as transforming securities held by public institutions abroad into bonds and other debt;
(v) the consideration of amounts arising from the IMF and EU loan, rejecting all types of interference and political impositions, and reassessment of the allocation and volume of the agreed amounts.
2. Diplomatic and negotiating offensive
A strong political initiative by the Portuguese State that rejects any submission of the country to the interests of the great EU and big business powers and affirms the uncompromising defence of national interests and sovereignty through the:
(i) intervention with other countries facing similar problems of public debt – Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Belgium, etc. – aiming at a converging action in this process to stem the current speculative spiral and build a response to the situation of economic and social strangulation of their countries;
(ii) the revision of the statutes and aims of the ECB and the assumption of a more active role by the EIB in supporting public investment;
(iii) the replacement of the Europe 2020 Stability and Growth Pact by a programme of Employment and Progress, adopting measures aiming at economic growth, creation of jobs and improvement of wages;
(iv) questioning of the process and consequences on the peoples involving the Euro and the Economic and Monetary Union.
3. Diversification of the sources of funding
An active policy of “renationalization” and diversification of foreign sources of funding that include:
i) issuing public debt among the Portuguese retail, duly paid at short, mid and long term, resuming within thirty days a stronger policy of issue of Savings and Treasury Certificates, by creating more attractive conditions for its buying by the families and which may include the creation of other instruments to attract national savings;
ii) development of bilateral international relations, finding more advantageous forms of funding, together with an also more diversified policy of mutually advantageous commercial relations with other countries, namely in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
4. Rebalancing public accounts
The consolidation of public finances, freed from the restraints of SGP, with the goal of sustaining public debt in the mid and long term and combining budget management with economic growth and social progress, should be implemented in the short term, given the liquidity problems faced by the Treasury, through urgent measures, in Expenses and Revenue, namely:
(i) reassessment of the Public/Private Partnerships (PPP), to be carried out within thirty days, involving the Ministry of Finance, the Ministries responsible, the Court of Auditors and the Bank of Portugal, with the aim, and according to the results, of renegotiating or terminating contracts that prove to be ruinous;
(ii) immediate termination of all so-called regulatory bodies and the inclusion of their missions in Central Administration departments;
(iii) non-renewal of the current contracts of external services of studies and consultancies and a full ban of any future creation, except in exceptional and duly substantiated cases;
(iv) the end of Portuguese armed forces missions abroad.
(v) the application of an effective 25% corporate tax (IRC) to the financial sector, and the introduction, by the end of July, of a fairer taxation of assets, IRC taxation on the capital gains of SGPS [Social Participation Managing Companies ]companies, the creation of a tax on stock exchange financial operations and taxation of assets placed in off-shore companies.
5. Increase of national production, containing imports and increasing exports
A policy of defence and promotion of national production, producing increasingly more to owe increasingly less, demands a vast programme of replacement of imports by production within Portugal which implies, among other measures:
(i) the strengthening of public investment aimed at economic growth, with special emphasis on agriculture and fisheries, along with a programme of industrialization of the country;
(ii) the valorisation of the domestic market along with an increase of wages (including an immediate increase of the minimum wage to 500€ and a raise of 25€ in pensions) and the income of the population (replacing the taken away social benefits such as family allowance), together with a fight against precarity and unemployment;
(iii) the adoption of an emergency framework to control the entry of goods into Portugal and support to exports;
(iv) a mandatory inclusion of a percentage of national production in products sold in the large retail sector;
(v) support to micro, small and medium-size companies with the setting of maximum caps on production factors (credit, insurance, energy, telecommunications, road tolls, etc.) and availability of public financing by renegotiating the PRODER, PROMAR and QREN programmes within the next 60 days;
(vi) the defence and strengthening of the Public companies in the basic and strategic sectors of the economy and the adoption of a policy whereby the public companies and institutions – in the field of their investments, consumption, partnerships, etc. – prioritize
