1. Yesterday, the PSD/CDS Government announced a series of decisions regarding CP, the most serious of which is the intention to sub-concession the most profitable railway lines in Portugal (Sintra/Azambuja, Cascais, Sado and Porto lines). This announcement confirms the Government's intention to privatise national rail transport and destroy CP as a major national company.

2. Resorting to demagoguery, lies and propaganda, the Government seeks to justify a decision which, if implemented, would lead to the criminal destruction of CP, removing its operation of the most profitable suburban services operating in Lisbon and Porto, forcing it to sub-concession them to private companies, thus jeopardising CP's entire national operation and the very survival of the company.

It is revealing that, after decades without a single train being produced or purchased in Portugal, and when such a purchase is finally guaranteed – as announced yesterday by the Government itself – this announcement is being made. In fact, what the government is preparing to do is to hand over the trains that CP is buying – including the high-speed railcars whose purchase it also announced – to the private economic groups to whom it wants to concession the lines, as was the case with Fertagus (a private company that operates on public infrastructure and with trains provided by CP). In essence, the investment is public and the profits remain in the pockets of economic groups and multinationals at the expense of the mobility of the population.

3. For the PCP, the privatisation and fragmentation of companies operating on the railways is a dangerous path that runs counter to the national interest. It is a path that only serves the interests and profits of economic groups at the expense of the safety and reliability of the system and of public resources that have always been denied to CP.

What is needed is to reverse this process of liberalisation, not to deepen it.

Instead of privatisations, promises and recycling of previous promises, in which the same millions of euros of investment are announced over and over again, what the Government should do is assume its responsibilities and reverse its criminal railways policy:

• assume responsibility for the delay in purchasing trains, some due to the non-authorisation of investment, others due to the failure to remove administrative obstacles to the purchase of trains, and strengthen the maintenance and production capacity of rolling stock, expanding the offer;

• assume responsibility for the delay in the High Speed Line project, which is due to its (and the previous PS Government's) choice of the PPP model with full public funding, and replace it with public investment;

• assume responsibility for the degrading situation at Fertagus and authorise CP to intervene to help the population;

• assume responsibility for the segmentation of CP, the separation of infrastructure (REFER/IP) from the operator, the closure of hundreds of kilometres of railway, the abandonment of stations and halts, the end of international connections, decades of anti-rail policy, and invest in this strategic sector as the workers and populations of our country have long demanded.

4. Given the seriousness of what has been announced, the PCP, while calling on railway workers to fight against this decision, will request, through its Parliamentary Group, a hearing with the Minister of Infrastructure in the Assembly of the Republic.