PCP criticizes public funding for defense

The parliamentary leader of the PCP accused the Government this Friday of channeling public resources to the war industry, in an allusion to the Prime Minister's promise to try to achieve an investment of 2% of GDP in Defense this year.

“It clearly demonstrates a choice. Instead of solving the country’s problems — wages, pensions, health, housing, education — the Government’s choice is to channel public resources, from the State, which should be mobilized to provide responses to workers and the people, to war,” said Paula Santos in statements to journalists in the Assembly of the Republic.

The parliamentary leader of the PCP was referring to the fact that , on Thursday, in a speech at the inauguration ceremony of the XXV Constitutional Government, in Lisbon, the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, announced that Portugal will bring forward the objective of reaching the investment of 2% of GDP in Defence, “if possible this year” , without compromising the correct accounts or social functions.

Paula Santos recalled that the PCP has been “very critical” of this Government option and argued that the increase in investment in Defense is not being made to comply with the Constitution of the Republic, which establishes that “it is the State’s obligation to ensure national defense”, but rather to “satisfy the interests of others”.

“I am talking, of course, about NATO, the European Union (EU) and the United States of America and, therefore, this clearly reveals the Government's option for the arms race, for war, when what is needed, in fact, is for the Government to focus and make an effort on the diplomatic level to find specific solutions to the conflicts that exist at the moment”, he maintained.

Regarding the rest of Luís Montenegro's speech at the inauguration of the XXV Constitutional Government, Paula Santos said she heard it “without surprise” and considered that the Prime Minister showed “a clear option to continue the options” of the previous executive.

“In other words, a political option based on low wages, low pensions, a political option based on the economic model of exploitation of workers, of concentration of wealth in economic groups and not in the service of the interests of our country”, he said.

Paula Santos also expressed “great concern” regarding public services, stressing that the Prime Minister did not refer in his speech to issues of health, housing, or “social rights of the State”.

“We are well aware of the thinking of both the PSD and the CDS on this matter, which is clearly in the direction of a minimal State, of privatization, of turning rights into a business for economic groups,” he criticized.