Please allow me to take advantage of this meeting following the elections to welcome the valuable contribution of our candidates, militants and activists of the political forces that make up our Broad United Democratic Coalition (CDU) and the many democrats without party affiliation who, together, built the dynamic election campaign of the CDU!
A welcome that we want to extend to all those who in some way expressed their support for the CDU and gave it their vote, which here in this municipality of Alcácer do Sal resulted in the confirmation of the absolute majority of the CDU in the municipality, doing justice to the work carried out, despite all the insidious manoeuvres and campaigns we faced, in which the election results continue to confirm the CDU as the great left-wing force in Local Government.
Yes, this was not an easy battle we fought. We had to face a set of adverse factors and with very unequal weapons.
The mandates now received, you can rest assured, will be translated into the committed continuation of the PCP and CDU elected representatives of rigorous and participative management in the municipality and parishes, giving vivid expression to the implementation of the CDU's distinctive project with the work, honesty and competence that characterises it!
The dimension of the country's problems places the need to respond more urgently.
Responding to the problems that result from decades of right-wing policies, where important structural deficits, worsening exploitation, injustices and social and territorial inequalities are present.
Response to problems such as low wages and pensions, unemployment and precariousness, rising cost of living, degradation of public services, but also the problems of destruction and decline of the productive apparatus, which weighs heavily on the country's deindustrialization process, the setback of important activities such as agriculture and fisheries.
The epidemic combined old and new problems that not only enhanced the country's weaknesses, but also increased the difficulties in the lives of millions of workers and pensioners. The problems faced by most families in accessing housing and caring for their children mounted on a wider scale. The weaknesses and difficulties of public services persisted, particularly in the NHS. The instability of many sectors. Certain economic activities, where micro and small entrepreneurs predominate, now face increased difficulties in keeping their activities alive.
On the other hand, the economic and financial groups and the multinationals take advantage of the situation to obtain greater gains from it, impose their projects to maximize the exploitation of workers and destroy jobs, but also aggravate the difficulties of the populations with their price policy, as is the case with energy.
A vast set of problems that need a response that the PS government has not given, nor does it give, by maintaining the central pillars of the same policy that, carried out with PSD and CDS for years and years in turns, jeopardising the country's development.
Portugal needs other options and to embark on an alternative path capable of initiating a trajectory of economic and social development for the country.
The PS government's State Budget proposal for 2022, which is now being debated, should be inserted in this general path of response to the problems. Not only is the Budget proposal not included in it, but the government does not show signs of wanting to follow this path.
The PCP's position is to respond to what is in the interests of the workers and people at any given moment.
In 2015, having played a decisive role in halting a course of destruction of rights and a course of national disaster that the Pact of national and foreign troikas had imposed on the country.
A decisive role to open perspectives for a path of defence and restoration of rights and incomes.
A path that was known to be limited considering the patent differences in crucial areas and options between the PS and the PCP. But even so, a worthwhile course considering what was central to achieve at the time.
With the decisive contribution of the PCP, a path of defence, restoration and achievement of rights began, of which we are very proud.
Faced with the epidemic, there we had the PCP with its decisive role in ensuring increases in pensions, the full payment of salaries for workers under lay-off, support for independent workers without social protection and for cultural agents and workers; in adopting new social benefits; in ensuring the means for the NHS to respond to the epidemic.
Yes, the situation was not more serious because it counted on the determination and proposal of the PCP.
The workers and the Portuguese people know who they could count on, just as they know who they can continue to count on today in defence of their rights.
As life has proven in all the determining moments in national life, the PCP was there, always with one objective: to find ways to respond to the problems of the country and of the workers and people.
That is the side we are on with the consistency and determination we always have!
With the epidemic over, putting in evidence the mass of problems and the answers that the country needs, one cannot postpone what is pressing and the PCP does not give up and is present in this fight.
And to say present in this fight is to affirm that the PS government must, in the State Budget and in other areas of governance, go further in the responses that are necessary.
There are resources and possibilities. No one will accept that there is no political will to give clear signs of a different path to face the country's development issues and the effective improvement of the people's living conditions.
Do not invoke, as we have been insistently witnessing in recent days, the argument of the need for a policy of "balanced accounts" based on anachronistic criteria regarding the deficit and debt, far from the needs of the country and to its detriment.
This policy was designed to guarantee that “even when changing governments, policies do not change”, as the Portuguese reality has shown in years and years of PS, PSD and CDS governments.
This policy is applied indistinctly by every government of these parties to serve the interests of big capital, namely its project of privatisation, as to a large extent happened when companies and strategic sectors were handed over to big national and transnational capital, but also for the subversion of the social functions of the State.
"Balanced accounts" that serve to favour the businesses that big capital sets up on the State Budget table, as is the case with the healthcare business, increasingly in the hands of big monopoly capital and to the detriment of the NHS and the right to healthcare of the Portuguese.
“Balanced accounts” which are never a concern when it comes to guaranteeing millions for the banks but which are never balanced when the time comes to solve the problems of the workers and the people.
Yes, what is at stake at the moment is whether or not there is a response to the country's problems.
It is not replacing this essential question by a discussion of whether or not there is any Budget, regardless of its content.
The debate on the State Budget must be part of a global response to the real problems facing the country's development.
And the truth is that the Government does not seem to want to follow the path that the country needs.
The country's situation calls for concrete measures that convey a clear sign of acting to open a path capable of responding to what is needed.
Act, from the outset, to ensure sustained economic and social development. A goal in which the general increase in wages, the valorisation of careers and professions is affirmed as a national emergency and decisive for the future of the country. To stop the going abroad of thousands of workers, to guarantee populating the national territory, to better distribute the wealth, to stimulate the economy, to expand Social Security revenues.
A goal that requires setting the National Minimum Wage at €850 in the short term, calls for increases in Public Administration to guarantee an effective recovery of lost purchasing power and the valorisation of careers.
In terms of labour legislation, the repeal of grievous rules, with the reinstatement of the principle of more favourable treatment, revoking the expiry of collective bargaining, combating the facilitation of dismissals, precariousness and deregulation of working hours.
Act to reverse the demographic decline, promote birth rates, guarantee the rights of parents and children. In this field, it is necessary to guarantee stability in housing for young couples, free day care for all children. Restore the universalization of family allowances.
Housing and transport also play a decisive role. It is necessary to repeal the Law on Rents, regulate prices and provide stability to rental contracts. It is necessary to double the current targets for the provision of public housing. In transport, it is necessary to act progressively towards free public transport, namely by extending it in 2022 to those with up to 18 years of age.
Act decisively to fight poverty among the elderly, to valorise those who worked.
It is necessary to valorise retirement pensions and put an end to the cuts that persist in the value of pensions with long contributory careers, ensuring full pensions for those with 40 or more years social security payments and reinstating the retirement age to 65 years.
In addition to the increase in lower pensions, start a path of effective recovery of the purchasing power lost over these years of pensions of more than 658 euros. An objective that should be expressed in January 2022 with an increase of 1.8% - combining the inflation forecast for 2021 and 2022 - with a minimum guarantee of 10 euros.
Act with a range of concrete measures to defend and strengthen the National Health Service as a guarantee of the Portuguese people's right to healthcare.
A goal that demands as crucial condition the valorisation of careers, pay and incentives for healthcare professionals that contributes to their fixation and full dedication to the NHS. This is the big task after the epidemic. In addition to investments in infrastructure and equipment, the decisive question for the NHS is its ability to stop the departure, secure and attract professionals, which is what allows the increase of the NHS's capacity.
Specifically, it is necessary to guarantee a minimum salary increase of 50% as of January for professionals who opt for full dedication, among other incentives.
It is also necessary to restore the full autonomy of hospital centres, family healthcare units and healthcare centres to hire professionals and investments foreseen in the budgets.
Act to defend and enhance public services that respond to the needs of populations and territorial cohesion.
Besides investing in equipment or buildings, it is necessary to create conditions to retain and value professionals, seriously addressing the issue of careers and salaries, especially in education. Areas such as security forces and services, Justice, Social Security and other sectors of Public Administration require urgent consideration.
Act with concrete solutions to ensure more fiscal justice, more means to do what is needed.
It is necessary to ease taxation on lower and intermediate incomes (Income Tax), as well as indirect taxes – an example of which is the 23% VAT on electricity -, and stand up, effectively, to the tax privileges of big capital, instead of expanding them, as the government intends.
A goal that is achieved by increasing the minimum existence income and the specific deduction, setting, in the case of the minimum existence, a value of 200 euros above the reference of the National Minimum Wage and also increasing the specific deduction by 200 euros.
Act, ensuring concrete measures, to boost economic activity, enhance national production, support micro, small and medium-sized companies.
The country needs to recover sectors such as the postal service, energy, transport or telecommunications, instead of continuing to watch many millions of euros go abroad every year, including to tax havens. Strategic sectors need to be at the service of the productive apparatus, of MSMEs, of the country.
The people and the country need a response that matches the problems and needs it faces.
A growth of 5.4% in the economy is announced. Billions of EU funds are being trumpeted. There are no reasons not to respond to what the country needs.
It is in this response that the government and the PS are lacking that the PCP is determined and intervening to ensure is assured. What must be answered and what is needed in the lives of the workers and people is not replaced by staging crises and instabilities. Crisis is not having a salary or pension at the end of the month, housing to live in or conditions to raise your children and watch them grow.
The PCP will not give up intervening to ensure solutions that respond to the interests of our people and national problems.
It will do so with its usual independence, determined by its commitment to the workers and the people.
The situation we live in calls for a strong political initiative from this necessary and irreplaceable Party in defending the interests of the workers and the people, namely in the affirmation of the alternative, in the development of the mass struggle, in the launching of a new mandate in local government, implementing the local government project based on work, honesty and competence at the service of the population and the implementation of a set of lines of work to start immediately, which includes the continuation of the national production roadmap, the defence of workers' rights and public services, in particular of the NHS and Public Schools, the implementation of the plan of the PCP’s Centenary commemorations.
We are a Party that the workers, the people and the country need to be stronger and more influential, which requires implementing the guidelines of the XXI Congress, paying attention, among other aspects, to strengthening the organisation and intervention with the working class and workers , the National Recruitment Campaign “The Future has a Party”, as well as the strengthening of local leadership bodies and the funding work.
We have a Party that is firm in its ideal. A Party that affirms and reaffirms its communist nature and identity in the materialisation of a patriotic and left-wing policy, for an advanced democracy, for a new society, free from exploitation and oppression - socialism and communism.