Mural at the Communist Party headquarters in Lisbon
The European Union is in turmoil. Years of crisis and brutal austerity have had terrible social consequences, especially in peripheral countries. In Portugal a change of government after the 2015 legislative elections brought an end to the previous troika-imposed austerity and even a reversal of some policies. But structural problems persist due to the nature of the EU and its mechanisms, particularly the single currency. To discuss the political situation in Portugal, the consequences of entering the single market and the Euro, and solutions to these problems, as well as other issues such as the rise of the far-right in Europe, we have interviewed João Ferreira from the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). He is a member of the PCP Central Committee, a city councilman in Lisbon and a two-time member of the European Parliament.
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Ricardo Vaz: Turning now to the Euro, the PCP is not alone today. There is a widespread opinion that the single currency is not working. Why was the Euro destined to fail and what were its consequences?
João Ferreira: In our view the Euro did not fail. There were goals that were proclaimed to the peoples, but the question is whether those were the true goals of the project. Our view is that they were not. The Euro was from the start a political project of European big capital. A project that had two main objectives: reducing the unit labour costs, which amounts to transferring…