1. The victory of “No” in the French referendum on the project of the new European Union Treaty constitutes an event of great political importance and meaning with inevitable repercussions at the European and international level. It is unequivocally a “No” by the people and the left and expresses the general feeling of discontent of the workers and the French people with the anti-popular and anti-democratic policies that the new Treaty tries to institutionalize.
2. The French “No” is primarily a clear condemnation of neo-liberal policies that the treaty tries to strengthen. At a time when, in the name of the “salvation” of the EU’s federalist project, there are some who hurriedly spread that the French “No” is not the result of the content of the treaty but the condemnation of the French internal policy, it is necessary to clearly affirm: the answer of the French people expresses the refusal of a treaty that aims to institutionalize the neo-liberal policies of a global character that are undertaken in their country. This result constitutes a serious defeat of the forces engaged in this European Union of the big capital and great powers and its transformation into an imperialist economic, political and military bloc. It represents a valuable incentive to the intensification of the struggle for another Europe of progress, peace and cooperation among peoples, sovereign and equal in rights, a cause to which the PCP always was and is deeply comitted, as an integral part of the struggle for the solution of the severe national problems.
3. The PCP fraternally greets the French communists and also all those who, battling for a true explanation of the issues at stake in the Treaty and facing a violent catastrophist campaign and unacceptable pressures and foreign interferences of EU bodies and foreign governments, conquered such an important victory of the popular and left forces.
4. The PCP rejects and condemns as highly anti-democratic and in affront of the will sovereignly expressed by the French people, the attempts to, in violation of the Treaties in force and resorting to unacceptable political pressures and “legal” engineering tricks, to impose at all costs the so-called “European constitution” now rejected in France (and probably also in Holland next June 1st.).
5. To the PCP the situation is clear: for the new Treaty to come into force it needs the approval of all EU member states. Even at the strictly legal level the French “No”, making the project of the Treaty null, forces the reopening and profound reconsideration of the process. But it is mainly at the political level, in relation to the class nature and guidelines of the process of cooperation and European integration, that the issue arises. The PCP will do all it can, through its intervention at the national level and through cooperation with other communist parties and left forces in Europe, to definitely bury the “constitutional Treaty” and defeat the anti-social, federalist and militarist forces that it tries to strengthen and consecrate.
6. The PCP always fought for the widest information and debate on the great options put to the Portuguese people on matters of European cooperation and integration. It did so in relation to the project of the so-called “European constitution”, defending that such a debate should culminate in a referendum, and this week dedicated a special edition of the “Avante!” to this pressing problem. The PCP reaffirms that for Portugal to take further steps within the EU, there is a need for a wide and clear national debate culminating in a referendum. Meanwhile the French “No” irremediably jeopardizes the present text of the Treaty. Under these circumstances, the referendum that the PS (Socialist Party) and the PSD (Social Democratic Party) hurriedly want to set at a date coinciding with the local government elections, is doubly manipulative: firstly due to the text to be put to a referendum, as this victory of the “No” will have to lead to a new process which will probably result in a changed Treaty; and also because it would be held in circumstances which would not enable an indispensable information for a conscientious and well informed decision. A referendum held under such conditions would be a farce.
7. The PCP reaffirms its frontal opposition to any attempt to approve a “European constitution” which represents an attack on the sovereignty of the countries and the peoples and which, in the present correlation of forces and federalist dynamics, will always constitute a further step in the dynamics of European integration dictated by the big transnational capital and an instrument of putting neo-liberalism in the constitution.
8. The struggle against the anti-social offensive carried out by the PS government under the pretext of the budget deficit and the struggle against a Europe of big capital and of the great powers are inseparable. The French “No” to the “constitutional Treaty has also the merit of putting into evidence this reality. The PCP appeals to the workers and the Portuguese people to continue the struggle in defence of their rights and aspirations, for a sovereign Portugal, of social progress in a Europe of peace and cooperation.
