In statements to journalists after a visit to the Aljube Museum in Lisbon, Paulo Raimundo was questioned about the "national objective", assumed this morning by the prime minister, for Portugal to cease being a country of cohesion and become a net contributor to the EU, being able to be in solidarity with the new States that come to join the community.

In his response, the leader of the PCP defended that "there is something that cannot be right" in these words by Luís Montenegro, stressing that there are "two million people on the brink of poverty", 230,000 of whom are children, and "three million workers who earn up to one thousand euros gross salary per month".

"Perhaps it is better for the prime minister to look at the national reality and the first question he has to ask is: how are we going to solve the problem of the economic and social cohesion of our country? For economic and social cohesion, what needs to be done the Government has no interest in doing: it is to combat injustices and inequalities", he argued.

Paulo Raimundo stated that the prime minister "comes to talk about cohesion and being a net contributor to others", but forgets that "Galp pocketed 333 million euros" in the first quarter of this year, and BPI "121 million, 74 of which were due to commissions and fees".

"Prime Minister, I value the spirit of solidarity - we also support solidarity with other peoples, that is not what is at stake - but the only way for us to help others is by solving our problems, for that to allow us to be in a position to be able to help others", he said.

Asked whether, for the PCP, more sovereignty and less Europe is important, Paulo Raimundo countered that he does not understand "how there can be more Europe without more sovereignty, without more independence".

"It is the sovereign countries, with more instruments in their hands - namely, with economic instruments - that are in a position to respond to the needs of the country and the people and, each time a country responds to the needs of the country and the people, it is moving in the positive direction of 'more Europe'", he stressed.

Asked if he considers that it would be positive for Portugal for former prime minister António Costa to be president of the European Council, the communist leader went back to the time when Durão Barroso was president of the European Commission to recall his "contribution to the Iraq war and to calling the 'troika'".

"I am not saying that Durão Barroso and António Costa are the same, that the thinking is the same, it is nothing like that: I am only saying that this idea that having a Portuguese at the head of this or that is an advantage for the country is a complete fallacy", he argued.

Asked whether he agrees with the new model of debates for the European elections agreed between television channels and parties - a total of six debates with four candidates - the leader of the PCP replied that, after the "back and forth that there was", despite everything "a solution that, while not ideal, corresponds to a set of concerns".

Regarding his visit to the Aljube Museum, Paulo Raimundo said he had the privilege of having visited the exhibition accompanied by Domingos Abrantes - who, he ironically said, was a "tenant" of the Aljube - and stressed that the place is a "living museum of history, of resistance" and an "example of the memory that we must not lose".

"There is no future without memory, there is no future without us not forgetting what we went through", he said, refusing that, in Portuguese society, the memory of fascism is fading.

"That memory is alive. (...) With the popular commemorations of the 25th of April it became evident that the people not only have not forgotten, as they are with strength and determination to affirm that the path is the path of April and not the path that is being followed", he said.

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