Press Conference, Lisbon, 8th December 2011 - Jerónimo de Sousa, PCP General Secretary
In today's meeting, the PCP's Central Committee analysed the developments in the domestic political situation and some aspects of the international situation, laid down the main lines for political and Party activity in 2012 and set the date for the Party's 19th Congress.
The Central Committe considered that the November 24 General Strike, and the many street demonstrations held on that day in various parts of the country, represent a high point for the Portuguese workers' struggle and are an extraordinary response to the Aggression Pact which is leading Portugal down the path of economic decline and impoverishing the Portuguese people.
The General Strike is all the more noteworthy, as it took place in the midst of an intense campaign promoting supposed “inevitabilities”, with which the pundits of the right-wing policies seek to justify the decisions that the Government has been taking in the economic and social spheres. This campaign is accompanied by an unprecedented offensive against labour rights, by high levels of unemployment and precariousness, by heightened repression in the workplaces and shop floors, by economic blackmail and attempts to restrict the right to strike.
The scope and breadth which the General Strike achieved gives new strength and stimulus to pursue and intensify the struggles against the Aggression Pact, and at the same time highlights the importance of the mass struggle as a determining and decisive factor in defeating the right-wing policies and achieving patriotic and left-wing policies, on the path to an advanced democracy and socialism.
The PCP's Central Committee greets CGTP and the millions of workers who took part in the General Strike, building this powerful day of action and confirming it as an inmense social force which is indispensible to build a better life, a country of progress and social justice. It also greets the thousands of Communist militants for their irreplaceable participation in preparing and materializing the General Strike, namely by taking part in hundreds of pickets throughout the country.
The most recent proposed changes to the labour legislation are a new and very serious attack against workers' rights. The intensification of workers' exploitation is the central axis of current policies and the review of labour legislation is a crucial element in ensuring the necessary mechanisms and instruments to maximize the accumulation of profits by capital, for example, through the decision to extend the working day by half an hour.
It is in this context of submission to the diktats of the Aggression Pact that the PCP's Central Committee considers the State Budget for 2012 -- adopted in Parliament by the PSD/CDS-PP majority and the full commitment of the Socialist Party, despite its attempts to conceal its identification with the Budget's policies through the sad “budget cushion” farce – to be an instrument of regression which impoverishes the country.
It is a State Budget that makes the economic recession deeper, increases unemployment, debases wages and pensions, deals new blows against public services and the State's social functions, heightens national dependency, submission and ruin. A Budget which, at the same time as it imposes restrictive measures against the vast majority of the Portuguese people, establishes mechanisms of assistance to the big economic groups and finance capital. Examples of this are the direct support for the banks, confirmed in the legislation on their recapitalization, and more recently the decision to transfer the banks' pension funds to the Social Security, an operation which has become a big scam for the bankers and a time bomb for the general Social Security system.
The PCP's Central Committee, in its analysis on the developments in the international situation, stresses its concern for the real dangers posed by imperialism's militarist and interventionist offensive, which has escalated all tension points, namely in the Middle East, within an overall political context marked by a deepening economic and financial crisis. This crisis confirms the growing contradictions of capitalism, in particular the monetary wars between the USA, the European Union's big powers and these and the so-called “emerging economies”.
In the European Union - within the context of the crisis and of an ever more profound process of capitalist integration – there are particularly serious sets of decisions being taken by the European Summits, such as the review of Treaties, ever more profound forms of economic governance, a more rigid Stability Pact, the furtherance of the “Euro plus Pact”, the reaffirming of the need for a pre-approval of State Budgets and the “election” of a “Euro Summit Chairman”, all of which are measures that, as the PCP has denounced, merely seek to preserve the political and economic interests of the big European powers, namely of the Franco-German axis.
In the present context, the Central Committee recalls the PCP's stance for an end to Economic and Monetary Union. We reaffirm Portugal's interests, on the issue of the euro and the developments involving it (namely as regards Portugal's continued participation in the single currency and the existence of an EMU). This goal is inseparable from a firm and patriotic attitude, demanding from the European Union measures to safeguard the country's interests, to compensate for the damage that has been done by over a decade of impositions which counter the national interest and by their consequences.
In the struggle for a patriotic and left-wing policy, and for a Portugal with a future, the Central Committee stresses the need, in our country, for a vast popular movement of rejection of the Aggression Pact. The CC indicates a set of guidelines for political and Party activity in the year 2012, in pursuance of past activities, and which encompasses: the development, multiplication and intensification of the mass struggle; strengthening the broad-based organizations and movements; political activity to strengthen unity; the intensification of political activity at all levels; strengthening Party organizations; internationalist activity.
Among other measures, strengthening the Party involves carrying out a national campaign of recruitment to the Party of 2 thousand new members until March 2013. In the calendar of activities for 2012, the celebrations of the PCP's 91st anniversary, «Avante!»'s 81st anniversary, as well as the 36th edition of the «Avante!» Festival on September 7, 8 and 9.
In the context of strengthening the PCP and its activity, the PCP's Central Committee has decided to convene the 19th Party Congress on November 30 and December 1 and 2 of the coming year. In the current domestic and international situation, which is marked by an ever deeper crisis of capitalism, the Congress is an important occasion to, not just assert the Party, but also its project for an advanced democracy and for socialism. A project of freedom, democracy and progress which is, more than ever, necessary and relevant.
The Central Committee reaffirms the PCP's everlasting commitment to fight for a society freed from the exploitation of man by man, a society for which generations of Communists have struggled, for over 90 years.
