What is relevant and decisive about the Constitution is its compliance. The constitutional amendment projects presented by PSD, IL and Chega prove that the constitutional amendment process is determined by the attack on the democratic regime and fundamental rights and by the objective of giving constitutional cover to right-wing policies, mutilating and subverting the Constitution. By admitting and giving cover to the possibility of amending the Constitution following this constitutional amendment process, the PS assumes an option with grave consequences for national life, threatens the rights of workers and people, democracy and the future of the country. The PCP will intervene, based on its own constitutional amendment project, to defend the values ​​of April and deepen the project for the future that the Constitution entails, firmly combating anti-democratic concepts that seek to impose setbacks and liquidate rights set in the Constitution.

1 - The national reality shows that the fundamental issue regarding the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic is its compliance.

If the Constitution were respected in its principles, if it were implemented in its broad conception of political, economic, social and cultural democracy, if the rights and project it enshrines were a reality, Portugal would be a different country for the better, more developed, with less injustice and social inequalities, with better conditions to face the challenges that the future poses.

In the compliance of the Constitution lies the sense of responding to the immediate problems that affect the people and the country, but also the sense of an alternative policy that faces the serious national structural problems.

What is required, as a priority, is to comply with the Constitution and what it enshrines in the rights to housing, healthcare, education, social protection, culture. It is ensuring that the rights of workers, pensioners, children and youth are implemented and respected. It is creating conditions for effective equality by combating racism, xenophobia and all types of inequalities and discrimination, as provided for in the Constitution. It is a priority to fulfil the project contained in the Constitution of a sovereign, developed, democratic Country, with respect and enforcement of fundamental rights and freedoms, of popular participation in national democratic life, of a Country that develops its international relations based on a policy of peace, friendship and cooperation among peoples.

These are the true priorities with regard to the Constitution and cannot be ignored or made secondary. They call for the intervention and mobilisation of all democrats and patriots for their implementation and the PCP will commit itself to that objective.

2 – The opening of the constitutional amendment process by Chega and the concrete content of the projects presented by PSD, IL and Chega prove that the meaning of this constitutional amendment process that will soon begin is determined by the attack on the democratic regime and fundamental rights and by the objective to give constitutional cover to right-wing policies by mutilating and subverting the Constitution. This assessment results, not so much from the fact that Chega was the one to trigger the amendment process, but, above all, from the concrete content of what is proposed.

It is particularly significant that the PSD, confirming its role and responsibilities in the policy of social regression and economic decline that it has imposed on the country over decades, has presented a constitutional amendment project with proposals of an anti-democratic and reactionary nature never presented before, revealing a line of subordination, dependence and even accommodation with the most reactionary, demagogic and anti-democratic positions assumed by Chega and IL.

The options of the PSD, IL and Chega are clearly visible in the text of the projects they presented and in which, all together or each one in turn, they target the values of April, the democratic freedoms and the rights conquered with the Revolution and enshrined in the Constitution.

It is the anti-democratic nature of the options of the PSD, IL and Chega that justifies the presentation of proposals that deliberately whitewash fascism and open wide the doors to the action of its heirs; that admit the limitation of freedoms with the facilitation of resorting to the state of emergency; which legalise the disclosure of information relating to citizens' communications by intelligence services; that admit the return of the "booking" of people and families with the collection of personal information; that condition the pluralism of democratic political expression by limiting the possibilities of institutional representation; that rehabilitate the use of life sentences and cruel or degrading treatment for convicts; or that recover the inquisitorial artifice of reversal of the burden of proof in criminal matters.

It is the reactionary and retrograde nature of the options of the PSD, IL and Chega that supports proposals that eliminate workers' committees’ rights; that erase the State's responsibilities and liquidate social rights in healthcare, education or housing, replacing rights with the logic of business only available to those who can afford it; of proposals that further condition the possibility of the State using the necessary means and resources to fulfil its social functions, including financial and budgetary means; or proposals that bring different generations of Portuguese into clash to justify the denial of rights in the present and in the future.

These are the reactionary and anti-democratic objectives that determine the opening of the constitutional amendment process, to which the absolute majority of the PS decides to give approval and possibilities of materialisation.

3 - By admitting the possibility of changing the Constitution following this process of constitutional amendment, the PS assumes a choice with grave consequences for national life and which threatens the rights of workers and the people, democracy and the future of the country.

Even if it takes advantage of the constitutional amendment process to amplify differences and divergences with the PSD, IL and CH regarding some of their proposals, the truth is that the admission by the PS of the possibility of implementing changes to the Constitution is in itself revealing of a convergence which can only be done to the detriment of the workers, the people, the country and the project of democracy enshrined in the Constitution.

The fact that the PS's constitutional amendment project itself admits the possibility of a general limitation of freedoms, even without recourse to the state of emergency, and also provides for the intrusion of information relating to citizens' communications by the intelligence services is already a harbinger of what could form the basis of a broader understanding between the PS and PSD regarding the mutilation and subversion of the Constitution.

4 - Since the constitutional amendment process has been launched, the PCP will intervene, based on its own constitutional amendment project, in order to defend the values of April and deepen the project for the future that the Constitution entails, giving firm combat to anti-democratic conceptions that aim the imposition of setbacks and liquidation of freedoms and rights set in the Constitution.

The main changes contained in the draft constitutional amendment of the PCP are as follows:

• The elimination of norms that allow the systematic transfer of national sovereignty to the institutions of the European Union and that allow the prevalence of norms issued by the European Union over Domestic law, including even the Constitution.
• The requirement for a binding opinion from the Assembly of the Republic for the Portuguese State to be bound by the European Union in matters within its competence.
• The elimination of the subordination of the Portuguese Constitution to the authority of the International Criminal Court, guaranteeing the full competence of the Portuguese courts to try crimes against Humanity;
• The constitutionalisation of the Advisory Council of Portuguese Communities;
• The guarantee of the fundamental rights to immigrants;
• The guarantee of the right to vote for foreign citizens in municipal elections, eliminating the current requirement of reciprocity;
• The guarantee that access to justice and courts cannot be conditioned or denied due to its high costs or insufficient economic means;
• The creation of a constitutional appeal for protection against any acts or omissions by public authorities that directly harm fundamental rights;
• Limiting the terms of office of the Attorney General of the Republic, the Ombudsman and the President of the Court of Auditors, to six years, non-renewable;
• The elimination of the possibility of applying disciplinary detention to the military in peacetime and outside of military missions;
• Restoration of the inviolability of the home at night, except in the event of flagrante delicto;
• The resumption of the ban on the extradition of national citizens, as well as foreign citizens in cases where life imprisonment sentences or sentences of indefinite duration are applied in the countries of destination;
• The constitutionalisation of the right of journalists not to practice professional acts contrary to their conscience;
• Extending the right of petition to local government bodies;
• Reinforcing the right to collective bargaining and prohibiting the automatic expiry of collective labour agreements;
• The valorisation of the national minimum wage;
• The progressive reduction of working hours without loss of rights;
• The specification of special guarantees of workers' pay;
• The enshrinement of the right to stable employment relationships;
• The guarantee of job security in appointments of Public Administration workers;
• The guarantee of the public, universal and solidary nature of social security;
• The valorisation of pensions and the protection of acquired rights in terms of social security;
• The constitutionalisation of a minimum subsistence income for all citizens;
• Free healthcare, through a universal, general and free National Health Service;
• Free access to pre-school education and all levels of education;
• The replacement of the reference of “minors” by “children and young people” in accordance with international law instruments relating to the protection of children and young people;
• The protection of the family home against evictions;
• The innovative consecration of the right of all citizens to water and basic sanitation;
• The introduction of an innovative article on fisheries and sea policy;
• The guarantee of food sovereignty and security;
• The consecration of the defence of the rural world;
• Attributing powers to the President of the Republic in the area of intelligence services;
• The constitutional enshrinement of former combatants' right to social protection;
• The possibility of submitting the approval of international conventions to a referendum, except when relating to peace and the rectification of borders.
• Mandatory intervention by the Government, the Assembly of the Republic and the President of the Republic in the decision to send military forces abroad;
• The elimination of the possibility of reducing the number of MPs of the Assembly of the Republic, as well as the possibility of the existence of single-seat constituencies;
• The increase in matters included in the reservation of power of the Assembly of the Republic;
• The elimination of the requirement of two-thirds qualified majorities for the appointment of external bodies by the Assembly of the Republic;
• The elevation of the local finance laws and the finances of the autonomous regions to the category of organic laws;
• The consecration of the possibility for the Assembly of the Republic to suspend the application of Government decree-laws when submitted to Parliamentary Appreciation;
• Strengthening the autonomy of the Public Prosecutor;
• The hearing of the parties represented in the Legislative Assemblies of the autonomous regions for the appointment and dismissal of the Representative of the Republic;
• The application of the regime of incompatibilities and impediments of the Assembly of the Republic and the Government to the assemblies of the autonomous regions and to the regional governments;
• The elimination of the requirement of a referendum for the creation of administrative regions;
• The consecration of the civilian nature of all security forces and the elimination of constitutional restrictions on the right to strike of its professionals.

It is in the values of April that the solutions for the future of the country can be found, it will be in their defence that the PCP will fight in this process of constitutional amendment.