The closing speech was delivered by the Party's General Secretary Paulo Raimundo, who stressed out the following:
Allow me to greet the guests who greatly honor us with their presence, various organizations and structures, associations, movements, political parties, social organizations, among which I highlight the CGTP-IN delegation.
A special greeting to our allies, the Ecologist Party “Os Verdes”, the Democratic Intervention Association,, and the many independents, without party affiliation, who are part of this project of work, honesty and competence that is the CDU.
We are coming to the end of our XXII Congress and here we can say that we have fulfilled its goals.
Here we analysed the developments in the international and national situation; we expanded our understanding of the framework in which we are intervening and the scale of the offensive; we identified the difficulties and the ground that we are treading; we took decisions to strengthen the Party and relaunch it in taking the initiative; we perfected our tactics and stressed our strategy; we have defined the patriotic and left-wing alternative as the central task facing all democrats, the workers, the people and the youth; we reaffirmed our communist identity; we adopted the political resolution and elected a new Central Committee.
And regarding the Central Committee, let me greet those comrades who have just exited.
Your action as members of the Central Committee was marked by dedication, militancy, determination, and this is how you will continue in the new duties that you will embrace.
I also extend my greetings to all those who are now taking up their duties, in particular those who have become members of the Central Committee for the first time.
The Congress was, as we expected, a moment of great significance for the PCP and of added importance for the workers, the people, the youth and the country.
The Congress was not staged, nor was it a show.
It was, in fact, a reality check, an expression of the lives that are lived and of the difficulties of everyday life, but also of the struggle that confronts them.
The Congress was, in fact, a display of strength, determination, courage and hope for many thousands who rightly aspire to a better life.
To all of them, to those who work and put the country to work; to those who have worked during a lifetime; to the young people who want to study, work and live here; to those who seek a better life in Portugal; to those who have gone abroad in search of opportunities that their country denied them; to the women who rightly aspire to equality in work and life - to all of them - we say, Portugal has a future and this future is built today with confidence, determination and struggle.
There is enough strength and forces, if organized and mobilized, to stop the minority that has seized the country, brought political power to its knees and dominates the economy at the service of the interests of economic groups. Those that reap 32 million euros of profits per day, at the same time as about 2 million people live in risk of poverty, including hundreds of thousands of children. Over a million pensioners are living on poverty pensions. Exploitation and the policy of low wages are accentuated.
There is enough strength and forces, if organized and mobilized, to confront class politics at the service of the powerful and to put an end to the tattered excuses that there is never any money to increase salaries and pensions, to value careers and professions, to fix professionals in public services, especially in the NHS; that there are never conditions to move forward with the public network of kindergartens or homes. But, lo and behold, there are always reasons and public resources available to lower the [corporate tax] IRC and for more transfers of public resources to the economic groups.
What serves the country is not its submission to the interests of economic groups and multinationals. What serves the country, what serves those who produce wealth and put the country and the economy to work, is a policy at the service of the people, at the service of the majority.
The situation that we face is very demanding. The enemy has great strength, and many resources.
But this is not the time for discouragement and to those who lose hope, we say: look at this Congress, trust this party and together, shoulder to shoulder, we will resist, we will gather strength and we will create the conditions to move forward and to transform.
In these times in which we live - full of uncertainties and understandable anxiety, in which the drums of war are sounding, in which injustice grows, in which big capital plays the card of the far right – what the workers and all democrats need, and increasingly so, is a stronger PCP.
They need a party that they can trust, that does not give in to opportunism when confronted with difficulties, that is a safe haven of steadfastness and courage, that is the bearer of confidence and hope, and a beacon of the possibility of overcoming difficulties, no matter how great they may be.
And it is from this need, and from the just recognition of the PCP’s role, which grows among more and more diversified people that, from the rostrum of the XXII Congress we appeal and convene the democrats, the patriots, those who live and work here, and the youth, all those who are against right-wing politics and injustice, so that, together with the PCP, they may take into their hands the struggle to break with right-wing policies, to defeat reactionary projects and to defend the democratic regime inscribed in the Constitution.
If in the PCP we assume ourselves as a decisive force to promote the patriotic and left-wing alternative, the responsibility for its construction also lies in the hands of the workers, the people, the democrats, the youth, and all those who are interested in its materialization. We have not given up on the country.
Portugal is not a province of any State. Portugal is a sovereign nation, with almost 900 years of history.
Portugal is the result of the construction and struggle of a people who, in decisive moments of our history, took their destiny into their own hands.
A people who are ever changing and open to new times.
A people who overthrew fascism, who carried out and built the April Revolution, who made its project, its achievements, its values, a living reality.
A people who have the necessary strength to put the country back on the track of these values and these achievements of April, a track which the country should never have left.
This country is not doomed to injustice and inequality.
This country has enough resources, means, forces and serious people, who are capable of building the better life that the majority rightly aspires to.
This country needs to respond to the national emergency of a significant increase in wages and pensions. It needs to fight the scourge of precariousness, to value careers and professions. It needs to respect those who work and have worked during a lifetime.
The country needs to put an end to tax breaks, to privatisations, to corruption and to put an end, once and for all, to the plunder of public resources by those who think they own it all.
The country needs more and better public services, saving and strengthening the National Health Service, fixing and hiring healthcare workers, and guaranteeing everyone access to health.
The country needs to value Public Education, to respond now to the shortage of teachers and other professionals, and to move towards a public network of free kindergartens and universal access to preschool education.
The country needs to confront the housing drama, to fight against [real estate] speculation, to lower rents, to force the banks to bear the effects of interest rates.
The country needs to recover the instruments to define, with sovereignty, its own path of development. Investing more and where it is most needed, and not where the European Union and its budgetary orders want to impose on us.
The country needs to, and must, produce more, to create more wealth and to develop as a sovereign nation.
It needs to put all scientific and technological knowledge and know-how, all research and science at the service of the country.
The country needs the strength and creativity of the youth and it needs to respond to their needs – rising wages, stability, public education, access to housing.
The country needs all those who seek here a better life. It needs to dispense with the mouldy and intoxicating speech of hatred, of racism and xenophobia.
A developed, progressive and sovereign country is possible, and we are here to build it, together with many others.
We emerge from the Congress stronger, better prepared and determined to take the initiative.
We will not miss out on any battle, be it social, economic, political, institutional or electoral. We will fight them all.
We will act at every level.
From the outset contributing to the activity of the Portuguese Communist Youth (JCP) and to the success of its congress, whose motto "In our hands the new world! Organize. Unite. Fight." defines well its goals and importance.
Let us take the initiative to raise wages and pensions, against injustice and inequalities, for public services, for a public network of free kindergartens for all children, for the right to housing.
Take the initiative with the development of the action "Increase wages and pensions, for a better life".
We relaunch here this action with a challenge to the Party, the workers, the people and the youth. Let us move ahead with one of the largest actions of support and demand that we have made to date. In the near future, and everywhere, we must contact, enlighten, mobilize to sign.
On January 14, throughout the country, we will with even greater commitment and confidence carry out 100 actions for 100 thousand signatures!
This action imposes a style of work that must be a reference for our overall action, for our links to the masses, for a Party connected to life.
Let us take advantage of this experience to take the initiative and intensify the preparation of the forthcoming local elections.
Let us make the local elections a great moment of contact and popular mobilization.
Let us move ahead with a broad action of popular support for CDU, this space of broad convergence, where all those who want to solve the communities’ concrete problems, all those who justly want to live better in their land, are welcome.
Let us mobilise communists, environmentalists, independents, everyone regardless of their party choices, to give even more strength to a project that cannot be confused with any other and that we want to see expand, to grow and go further, from the outset with the presentation of more lists.
Those who have an unparalleled local government project like ours and who have proven results; those who have elected officials linked to the populations like those of the CDU; those who have work, honesty and competence as their trademark; those who embark on a broad journey of contacts, mobilization and involvement of popular support, can only have reasons for confidence in the battle of the local government elections.
Take the initiative, without any hesitation, for peace and against war. For solidarity and against militarism and the industry of death.
We have not given up on peace and we will be, as we always have been, at the forefront of demands. We will be there on January 18 in Lisbon in the demonstration under the slogan "It is urgent to end wars! All together for peace!». And we will certainly be many, because there are many, and increasingly so, who do not accept the path of war and disaster to which they want to drag the people.
Take the initiative and energize the just struggle that is there and that must be intensified, from the outset the struggle of the workers, but also of other sectors and strata, whether for housing, for the NHS, for public services, for public transports, for the environment, against all discrimination and prejudice, for rights, respect and dignity.
To take the initiative in strengthening the Party, materializing the general movement that we have now decided. A movement that requires that the whole Party takes concrete measures to give responsibilities to cadres, as a central element, further expanding our capacity to go further, to intervene in more fronts, to mobilize more people.
Strengthening a Party which is so badly needed by the country, the workers, the people, the youth, the democrats and patriots.
Whoever thought that we would come to the XXII Congress to lament, was once again mistaken.
Those who expected us to confuse resistance with relinquishing have found here a Party that is aware of the ground on which it treads, of the difficulties and the demanding situation that our people face, but that is here, resisting.
Yes, resisting. But a resistance that does not sit idly, that throws itself into the struggle, in order to accumulate strength and to advance.
Those who expected weakness, found strength, unity, determination, courage.
Those who expected isolation, found a party connected to life and reality, available and committed to join forces with all those who are rightly concerned about the current course of the country.
Those who expected stagnation, found the creativity of youth and the strength of JCP.
Those who expected conformity found here the struggle that confronts them, found the hope of April and the strength of May and an unshakable confidence in the workers, the people and the youth.
Those who expected pessimism found joy, that joy that belongs to those who know that the cause for which they fight is just.
We are sorry to disappoint those who take their wishes for granted. The PCP is here.
With the strength of our project, the determination of our collective, the courage of those who are not afraid.
The PCP is here belying, and above all prepared to confront and defeat, all those who would like to see the Party bow to the power and interests of big capital. But this is not yet another party of Capital. There are already too many of those. This is, and proudly so, the Party of the Workers.
Those who wanted a doomed Party have found here, and will find tomorrow, in the companies and workplaces, in the streets, in health centres, in schools, universities, research centres, associations - will find everywhere where life pulsates - the strength of April to take the initiative, with the workers and the people, with its eyes set on building democracy and socialism.
The struggle continues!
Long Live Peace!
Long live the XXII Congress!
Long live JCP!
Long live the PCP!