PCP considers that the EU’s new budgetary rules are “another piece of attack on sovereignty” – Politics

The secretary general of the PCP considered this Tuesday that the new European budget rules are “another piece of attack” on national sovereignty and accused the PS and the right of giving in with “enthusiasm to the orders coming from Brussels”.

At a press conference at the Jean Monnet European Center, in Lisbon, presenting the balance of PCP MEPs in the European Parliament, Paulo Raimundo accused PS, PSD and CDS, “who now want to join Chega and IL”, of being “compromised with European capitalist integration at the service of great powers and monopolies, with its federalist, militarist and neoliberal nature”.

The communist leader recalled that these five parties voted, last week, against the PCP’s draft resolution that recommended the suspension of the Stability Program presented by the Government, “and curiously they did so on the same day” that the European Parliament approved, with your votes, the new European budgetary rules.

These rules are “another piece of attack on our sovereignty, another piece of greater capacity for the European Union (EU) to determine the options that only the country can make”, he criticized, arguing that what is currently required “is to give more strength to courage to face the current situation.

It is not giving “more support to the expressed will [pela UE]as do PS, PSD, CDS, Chega and IL, in support, I would even say enthusiasm, of the orders coming from Brussels”, he stated.

Criticism of the new European budgetary rules, which came into force today, was also made by the head of the CDU list for the European Parliament elections, João Oliveira, who assured that the coalition will combat “blackmail to reduce public spending, recently pledged in the European Parliament by PS, PSD and CDS”.

“The strength of the CDU [no Parlamento Europeu] has made and will make a difference in rejecting the neoliberal playbook, of liberalizations and privatizations, of the commercialization of public services, of the attack on social and labor rights, of restrictive budgetary policies”, he assured.

João Oliveira also highlighted that the CDU will “face the discussion of the post-2027 financial perspectives” and “refuse the end of the principle of unanimity, which mainly harms countries like Portugal”.

Asked if he does not fear that there will be a demobilization of voters in the European elections, and if he believes that the campaign will be about European issues as requested by the Prime Minister, João Oliveira once again referred to the new European budgetary rules to highlight that AD candidates they will “certainly seek to find elements of distraction or dispersion in the national reality”.

“The reform of economic governance and the Stability Pact was approved in the European Parliament with the votes of deputies from the PS, PSD and CDS and means more difficulties. (…) It is natural that, in this aspect, the AD candidates want to distract pay attention so that no one comes to hold them accountable”, he said.

Having at his side the current PCP MEPs Sandra Pereira and João Pimenta Lopes, as well as the head of the CDU list for the 2019 Europeans, João Ferreira – who was replaced by Pimenta Lopes in the European Parliament in 2021 -, João Oliveira considered that the The work carried out by the three confirmed the CDU “as the voice of the workers and the people” in Brussels.

According to a balance released by the PCP, in the last term, between 2019 and 2024, the party’s MEPs “made more than 517 interventions in plenary, around 525 written questions to the European Commission and the Council, 3,076 declarations of vote and assumed the direct responsibility for monitoring 71 reports”.

João Ferreira highlighted that the last five years were, at European level, marked by topics such as the covid-19 pandemic, the approval of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, “marked by a cut in transfers to Portugal”, the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the increase in the cost of living.

The European Union (EU) now has new community rules for deficit and public debt in force, given the reform of the bloc’s budgetary rules, which member states will begin to apply in 2025 after drawing up national plans.

The resumption of budgetary rules is planned after the suspension due to Covid-19 and the war, but with a new formulation, despite the usual ceilings of 60% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for public debt and 3% of GDP for the deficit.

It is also now defined that public debt will be reduced by at least one percentage point per year for countries with a debt ratio above 90% of GDP (as is the case in Portugal) and by half a percentage point for those with are between this ceiling and the level of 60% of GDP.