Former coordinator of BE, Catarina Martins, addressed the opening of the 2025 edition of the Socialist Forum in Coimbra, regarded as BE’s ‘rentrée’. She commended participants of a “broad left,” gathered in a setting for dialogue and idea exchange, in an initiative that “showcases the stark contrast between responsibility and response versus the politics of shadow and deceit, leaving the country worse off.”
Her intervention, which was met with applause, largely focused on current political matters. Catarina Martins criticized the Prime Minister’s announcement at the PSD event at Pontal regarding the return of Formula 1 to Portugal while wildfires were ravaging the country, labeling it as an insult.
“An insult, a smokescreen in a country that needed help while fires burned and communities were left alone. An absolute disregard for the country, an absolute disregard for those suffering, which cannot go unnoticed,” she asserted.
Martins highlighted what she described as a lack of a plan for which hospital emergency rooms would be open or closed.
“And the Government chose to announce a plan to prevent the family reunification of immigrants. Creating a conflict to avoid discussing problems and adding problems to problems,” she emphasized.
“And now, as the school year begins, with so many schools lacking the teachers they need, with many professionals missing, as we need to debate how this school year will unfold, what does the Government do? It announces a committee to commemorate November 25. An insult to democracy and, once again, an evasion of responsibilities,” argued the BE member of the European Parliament.
According to Catarina Martins, the country should be debating how public schools will have the means to operate, not engaging in what she termed “historical revisionism,” which the Bloc refuses to accept.
“And while all this was happening simultaneously, the Government initiated another action: they started a debate on a labor legislative package, so that in one of the countries with the lowest wages but highest supermarket and housing prices, employment becomes even more precarious and salaries even lower,” she claimed.
“The Government expects the country to be unable to debate any of this and to get distracted by the 500 smokescreens it keeps launching. And here we are, the left in Portugal and the left in Europe (…). Here we are to not be deceived,”
emphasized Catarina Martins.
The Social Forum 2025, organized by BE, alongside the European family ‘The Left’, concludes on Sunday in Coimbra, gathering over 500 participants.
It features participation from PS MEP Marta Temido, BE founders Francisco Louçã, Fernando Rosas, and Luís Fazenda, several activists, as well as representatives from Spain’s Podemos and France’s France Unbowed.
