Translated "Avante!" article By Pedro Guerreiro, Member of the Secretariat of the CC and Head of the International Department

The successive and unacceptable pressures and interferences round the State Budget for 2014, carried out by the European Union (EU) and the IMF, with the PSD /CDS government agreement, upon the Constitutional Court, are issued by a colossal manoeuvre and mis-en-scène which aims, among other aspects, to impose another real plunder concerning workers and the Portuguese people, and find a scapegoat in order to hide its responsibility regarding the country’s dramatic situation and therefore, justify the proceedings of its exploitation and disaster intensifying policy for Portugal - rethreading the so-called “ agreement memorandum”, the pact of aggression - , carrying on to confront, and if possible, subordinate the Portuguese Constitution to the interests and dictates of the great financial and economic national and foreign groups.

In the pursuit of the Common Market, the Maastricht Treaty, the Economic and Monetary Union (the Euro), the so-called “ agreement memorandum”, as the so-called “Budget Treaty” ,which gives it continuity and “institutional” form, are external interference instruments which, under the pretext of “deficit” and “ debt” values - , resulting from a PS,PSD,CDS,EU and IMF policy, for which they are responsible,- perpetuating the right-wing policy, that is, the political and economic domain, allowing the incessant workers’, people’s and country’s plunder.

In reality, its objective is to carry on changing Portugal into a country of cheap labour, deprived from the necessary instruments control for its socio-economic development, a tax paradise for the great financial and economic groups, dependent and subjugated to the interests and dictates of the great EU powers - Germany as leader - , and its great monopolist groups.

An unacceptable purpose which inevitably confronts and hit’s the workers and the Portuguese people’s rights and expectations, as well as the Portuguese Constitution, which defends them. A Constitution which, regardless being successively altered, consecrates and safeguards political, social, economic and cultural rights and establishes the conditions in order to insure a progress and social justice path, economic development, which responds to the workers and the people’s needs and the country’s problems, affirming its national sovereignty and independence, peace, friendship and cooperation with all peoples world-wide.
And therefore, it is not surprising that the great financial and economic groups consider and point out the Portuguese Constitution as a hindrance to its insatiable exploitation, with the aim of ignoring it. The musty and old choir messengers rise, proclaiming the Portuguese Constitution is “out of date” and urges to adequate the latter to (its) “reality”, obviously , measured and imposed by the great financial and economic groups interests’ criteria - wealth concentration, exploitation, unemployment, poverty, inequality, disparity, divergence, domain and war. Nevertheless, what the dramatic people’s and country’s situation highlight, is the Portuguese Constitution’s strong importance and value and the path towards social and national emancipation, it persists to consecrate. A path of hope and trust, initiated and conquered by the Portuguese workers and people, in April 25th, 1974, which values are reaffirmed by the current situation and it is amid their hands to defend and project it into the future.