With the presentation of the State Budget for 2026 proposal last week, the PSD/CDS Government took yet another step towards achieving its objectives and once again made it clear who its policies serve.

This proposal is yet another piece in the ongoing policy of exploitation, injustice and regression.

Attempting to separate the Budget now presented from the Government's programme, with all that it implies, is nothing more than an exercise in political contortionism, and those who do so are merely seeking to absolve themselves of their responsibilities and commitments to right-wing politics.

This is a budget proposal of low wages and pensions, investment restraint, attacks on public services, fiscal injustice and the funding of big capital profits.

A Budget proposal focused on pageantry, propaganda and illusion.

Some want to present the Budget proposal as if it were a technical document. But the great technique here is to contain technically well-packaged measures that fit, and how, into the old techniques of economic groups.

Yet another Budget, a follow-up of previous ones, including those of the PS, where the necessary response to the Country's needs is replaced by submission to the interests of economic groups and multinationals, and to the impositions of the Euro and the EU.

A Budget that sacrifices everything except the transfer of public resources to economic and financial groups.

It sacrifices public investment in a Country that needs schools, hospitals, housing, transport, nurseries, nursing homes, productive apparatus, forests, science, culture and security for its people.

What the Country needs, what is urgent and necessary, is 5% of GDP to invest in what is needed, not this path of madness of 5% of GDP for war.

A Budget that sacrifices the valorisation of wages and careers of Public Administration workers, increases in pensions, the quality of public services, improved living conditions, universal rights and territorial cohesion.

It sacrifices economic growth, the same growth that, curiously, is now expected to be lower than what the government announced on the eve of the elections.

It sacrifices the fight against poverty, injustice and inequality, while transferring billions of euros of public resources to economic groups and multinationals. It takes from the poorest to give to the richest.

The Country does not need propaganda and illusion, it needs a strong stimulus to the domestic market, to increase the purchasing power of the workers and the population, and to boost public and private investment.

There is no such thing as balanced management of public accounts, as they would have us believe. Turning the budget surplus into a kind of new dogma of national policy is not only a sham, but also a very strong factor in worsening current problems and seriously jeopardising the future. Balancing public accounts and tackling debt can only be achieved by increasing wealth creation, with more national production and fiscal justice.

Today's obsession with budget surpluses will be tomorrow's reality of worsening deficits. Whether budgetary, productive, food, energy, scientific and technological deficits, or even demographic ones.

But all this is overlooked by the Government and the forces that enable its policy. The same forces that align themselves with the interests of capital, clearly expressed in a Budget that gives cover, for example, for the reduction in IRC corporate income tax.

A process that began last year with the support of the PS and accelerated this year with Chega. An option that, in practice, diverts €2 billion per year of public resources to economic groups.

To this can be added a further €1.8 billion in tax benefits for large companies for next year.

A Budget that, once again, transfers around half of the current expenditure of the National Health Service to private groups in the healthcare business.

A Budget that further encourages real estate speculation, gives cover to the fiscal measures announced in the area of housing, a stunt for the benefit of the banking sector and real estate funds. That gives more than €1.5 billion to those who hold public-private partnerships in healthcare and roads. It gives more than €1.9 billion in tax benefits to non-habitual residents.

That continues the attack on Social Security, including more exemptions from social security contributions for employers. It supports privatisation and the handover of TAP and public buildings to big capital.

When we listen to the discourse of economic groups regarding the State Budget, we can only conclude that if hypocrisy paid taxes, the country would have many, many more resources.

The Country is as it is, the life of the majority is as it is, and what is being presented is a Budget that serves those who think they own everything. For them, it's all generosity, but for workers, pensioners and young people, it's nothing but tight fists.

The Country does not need restraint for the majority and more benefits for the minority. What the Country needs is to curb the rise in prices of essential goods and services. What the Country needs is a wage shock with a general increase in wages, including in Public Administration, to attract and retain workers who are indispensable to the quality of public services.

Increases that would make it possible, in the case of the National Minimum Wage, to reach €1,050 in January. The Country does not need to further limit pensions and retirement benefits. What the Country and pensioners need is dignity, respect, and the ability to pay for food, medicine, and increasingly expensive rents. What is needed is a 5% increase in pensions, while ensuring that no pensioner receives an increase of less than €75, thus guaranteeing a more significant increase in the lowest pensions. A measure for everyone, which serves everyone and not just 230,000 of the more than 3 million pensioners and retirees, as is the case with the solidarity supplement for the elderly.

With a Country hanging by its nails and with poverty levels that we are all aware of, when emergency services are closed and babies are being born on the way to hospital, with schools lacking teachers, a crisis in access to housing, mountains and forests burning, equipment and infrastructure in need of investment, in this situation, the slogan of those who support and enable the current policy is: to hell with the Country.

The commitment to this course by Chega and IL is not only evident, and many of their proposals and objectives are reflected in the Budget.

It is clear that they will seek to conceal this reality, sometimes saying that it is short and that economic groups deserved even more, sometimes finding various manoeuvres – such as the price of fuel – to feign an opposition that does not exist.

From Chega, with guarantees to implement policies that serve its patrons, we can only expect shouting, demagoguery, lies and illusions.

As for the PS, following on from what happened with the approval of last year's Budget, we will now have what is called a “rigorous abstention”, i.e. “compromised viability” with a disastrous policy of dismantling the National Health Service, injustice, a labour package policy, more precariousness, more deregulation of working hours, and unfair dismissal. Those who make the Budget viable make this policy viable.

This is not the path the Country needs.

The response to the problems faced by the workers and the people will not be achieved either by the calculation of some or by the reactionary drift of others. The situation of the Country demands clarity, courage and initiative.

Clarity in combating right-wing politics, whoever is behind it.

Courage in confronting the interests of big capital, reactionary forces and the impositions of the EU.

And the capacity for initiative to present proposals and an alternative course for the Country, combating the Government's policies and ensuring the defence and application of the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

The PCP, acting as the de facto opposition to this Government and this policy, will not only vote against this proposed State Budget, but will also take the initiative to present measures and options in various areas during the budget debate, measures and options that break with the disastrous path we are forced to follow.

The stability that some speak of as a supreme value is in fact the stability of the colossal profits of economic groups, the stability of the luxuries and perks of a small minority that this government serves.

In reality, the stability of a few is the instability of the lives of our people, the instability of all those who face precariousness, the instability of low wages, of an ever-increasing monthly bill, of a cost of living that keeps rising, of the lack of housing, of difficult access to healthcare, of the lack of nurseries, of nursing homes that do not exist...

On our part, we will do everything we can to ensure that the workers and the Portuguese people make their voices heard against this State Budget, against the Labour Package that is being proposed, against a policy of exploitation, injustice and regression, and for the right to a better life and a Portugal with a future.