PCP marks protests and honks against rising cost of living

ANDthis initiative was announced by communist leader Vasco Cardoso at a press conference at the national headquarters of the CFP in Lisbon, in which he contested the decision of the European Central Bank (ECB) to raise interest rates by 25 basis points to 2.50% for the second time this year.

“ In the framework of the launch of a large national campaign that the CFP will develop from 17 September, we want to mark this day with a set of initiatives, public tribunes, honkings, contact actions, to leave well attached, not only the positioning of the CFP, but a more general rejection to this direction of national sinking where it leads us, both the government policy and the decisions of the ECB as the one that was taken today,” he said.

It will be the beginning of a national day, under the motto “Romper with injustices, a new direction for Portugal, a better life”, protesting “against the increase in the cost of living and the demand for response in increasing wages and pensions and in controlling prisoners”, said the leader of the Political Commission of the Central Committee of the CFP.

“ The ECB’s decision, supposedly to prevent higher inflation rates caused especially by rising energy prices, is, in our view, wrong. It penalises, as it always does, workers and their families for the impacts of a war that, whether in the Middle East or in Eastern Europe, is fed by the institutions of the European Union themselves,” said Vasco Cardoso.

For the CFP, the ECB’s decision puts “the workers and peoples to pay for the escalating confrontation that US imperialism promotes, with EU support, but also with the support of the PSD and CDS Government and those in Portugal that align with the drums of war”.

In response to the increase in the cost of living, and in the face of “the scandalous profits” of oil companies, large food distribution and banking, the CFP claims “another policy”, which goes through the “general increase in wages, including the national minimum wage” and the “intermediate increase in all pensions by EUR 50, with retroactives from July”.