During a protest in Lisbon against NATO, Paulo Raimundo stated that Portugal’s “courageous posture” would be to abstain from “a war summit” that seeks to divert resources to “large arms companies” instead of wages and pensions.
“The path of the people is not the path of war, not the path of destruction, but the path of peace,” declared the communist leader, who attended the “Peace yes, NATO no” rally organized by the CGTP union and the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation.
Paulo Raimundo criticized the “tremendous hypocrisy and cynicism expressed in various fronts,” citing recent attacks by Israel and the United States in Iran and “the way many commented on it, starting from completely different assumptions” compared to other world conflicts, hinting at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The NATO Summit could involve a target of 3.5% of GDP on traditional defense spending (armed forces, equipment, and training) and another 1.5% on dual-use infrastructure (military and civilian), significantly above the current 2% commitment from Atlantic Alliance members, including Portugal.
Referring to European plans to mobilize 800 billion euros for the defense sector, Paulo Raimundo warned the government that “Portugal is not a province of the European Union, not an appendage of NATO, and certainly not a U.S. military base.”
Concerning the use of the Lajes Base by the United States in the Azores before the U.S. aerial bombardments on Iranian nuclear facilities early Sunday, the PCP leader argued that “national territory cannot be used as a war platform” and that “the government must uphold its sovereignty, or there’s no point in being here.”
Raimundo also criticized NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who praised the “great success” of the U.S. military operation in Iran through a message shared by White House leader Donald Trump and confirmed by the organization.
“A person [Rutte] who wrote what he wrote, that boot-licking to Trump, in the way he did, can only be considered a former secretary-general and cannot start a NATO Summit under those circumstances,” he condemned.
In an alternative to his resignation, Raimundo ironically noted that the former Dutch prime minister “will have to endure, greatly, and if we want, in a French way,” the substantial increase in defense spending that European countries are expected to adopt.
The party leader questioned this option in a country that had five emergency services closed on Saturday and six on Sunday, noting two million people in poverty and 300,000 poor children, in addition to half of the workers earning up to a thousand euros and the housing crisis.
Spending 5% of GDP on defense only serves “Trump’s interests and the U.S. military industry, which is fundamentally what’s on the table,” he emphasized.
On the sidelines of the protest, which gathered several dozen people in central Lisbon, Paulo Raimundo also demanded that Portugal recognize the State of Palestine, where Israel launched a significant military operation in Gaza in response to Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, in Israel.
“Any day we’re the last ones, we have no one else to wait for,” lamented the PCP secretary-general, acknowledging that recognition “doesn’t solve the problem, but it would be an extremely important signal, a political signal to help stop the ongoing genocide.”
