PCP considers extremely grave the Portuguese Government's decision, announced yesterday, to recognize the self-proclaimed independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo.

This decision is all the graver as it was taken at a time that would recommend that Portugal's posture be directed towards deescalating the existing signs of tension in the region, and days before a discussion and vote in the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution on this matter.

This decision supports an illegal act and a very grave international precedent, it violates the most basic principles of International Law and the principles of the Portuguese Republic's Constitution regarding the international relations of the Portuguese State, namely its Article 7 on the sovereignty of States.

The Portuguese Government is thus associated with yet another grave step in an escalation of subversion of international law and with an imperialist offensive against territorial integrity and the sovereignty of States, inserting itself yet more clearly among the group of governments, which under the direction of the USA and NATO, carry on a process of dismembering Yugoslavia and creating protectorates in the Balkans that assume a status of loyal representatives of the US and NATO's economic, energy and geostrategic interests, and that simultaneously fosters a strategy of increasing confrontation with Russia, the recent events in the Caucasus being its most visible front.

The gravity of this decision is all the greater as it constitutes an unacceptable and confessed abdication of sovereignty in the definition of Portugal's international relations, justified by a shameful subservience to the USA, to NATO and to the EU, and is sustained by irresponsible arguments that demonstrate a profound disrespect for International Law - an eminently political legal edifice - to which the Portuguese Government is bound by constitutional mandate, and to its status as a Member State of the United Nations Organization.

By attempting to justify its decision with the risk of Portugal's international isolation and the "irreversibility" of the process, the Government deliberately conceals the position of the vast majority of UN member States - one of neutrality or non-recognition of the self-proclaimed independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo -, it explicitly ignores the position of the UN, and casts aside the discussion that is taking place in this organization on the matter. It is this posture, and no other, that isolates Portugal in the international community.

Reaffirming its clear opposition to this decision, PCP holds the Portuguese Government, and the other sovereign bodies and political forces that agreed with this decision, responsible for the expected consequences of a decay of relations between Portugal and the Serbian Republic, and for eventual developments in the Balkans, namely an increase in instability with unpredictable developments.

This decision is all the graver as it was taken at a time that would recommend that Portugal's posture be directed towards deescalating the existing signs of tension in the region, and days before a discussion and vote in the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution on this matter.

This decision supports an illegal act and a very grave international precedent, it violates the most basic principles of International Law and the principles of the Portuguese Republic's Constitution regarding the international relations of the Portuguese State, namely its Article 7 on the sovereignty of States.

The Portuguese Government is thus associated with yet another grave step in an escalation of subversion of international law and with an imperialist offensive against territorial integrity and the sovereignty of States, inserting itself yet more clearly among the group of governments, which under the direction of the USA and NATO, carry on a process of dismembering Yugoslavia and creating protectorates in the Balkans that assume a status of loyal representatives of the US and NATO's economic, energy and geostrategic interests, and that simultaneously fosters a strategy of increasing confrontation with Russia, the recent events in the Caucasus being its most visible front.

The gravity of this decision is all the greater as it constitutes an unacceptable and confessed abdication of sovereignty in the definition of Portugal's international relations, justified by a shameful subservience to the USA, to NATO and to the EU, and is sustained by irresponsible arguments that demonstrate a profound disrespect for International Law - an eminently political legal edifice - to which the Portuguese Government is bound by constitutional mandate, and to its status as a Member State of the United Nations Organization.

By attempting to justify its decision with the risk of Portugal's international isolation and the "irreversibility" of the process, the Government deliberately conceals the position of the vast majority of UN member States - one of neutrality or non-recognition of the self-proclaimed independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo -, it explicitly ignores the position of the UN, and casts aside the discussion that is taking place in this organization on the matter. It is this posture, and no other, that isolates Portugal in the international community.

Reaffirming its clear opposition to this decision, PCP holds the Portuguese Government, and the other sovereign bodies and political forces that agreed with this decision, responsible for the expected consequences of a decay of relations between Portugal and the Serbian Republic, and for eventual developments in the Balkans, namely an increase in instability with unpredictable developments.