Communist leader and former MEP João Ferreira on Thursday defended the existence of a “dictatorship of the single thought” by the European Commission president and a “witch hunt” to limit citizens’ rights and freedoms.
“At a time like the one we live in, where from the European Union [UE] and the speech we heard a few days ago from the President of the European Commission [Ursula von der Leyen]it tries to affirm a discourse that is a kind of dictatorship of the single thought […] a voice committed to rights, freedoms and guarantees is becoming more necessary,” said João Ferreira in a presentation in Lisbon on balancing the activities of PCP members.
João Ferreira – who was replaced by João Pimenta Lopes in Strasbourg in July 2021 – advocated an effort to “criminalize different thinking” and “spread the theories of the external enemy that lives among us and around which there is who is vigilant”.
PCP Secretary General Jerónimo de Sousa has used the phrase “dictatorship of the mere thought” several times, but to refer to comments made publicly against the party’s stance regarding the invasion of Ukraine by decision of Russia.
From the perspective of the member of the political committee of the communist leadership, Brussels is conducting a “new witch hunt, announcing measures that escalate the restriction of the rights” of European citizens – an allusion to the discourse on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
MEP João Pimenta Lopes shares his predecessor’s view in those posts, but added that there are “distortions of the PCP’s stances” on the war that are an “attempt to condition” the party’s intervention on European level.
The increased pressure is acknowledged, but the communist MEP has rejected it, a view that appeared to be shared by the party’s other MEP, Sandra Pereira, who nodded in agreement.
More than a decade later, João Ferreira left the European Parliament to pursue municipal ambitions, but said from afar that he understood that “the passage of time very often sheds a different light on things” and the “countercurrent vote” of the PCP in Strasbourg.
Between 2019 (date of the last European elections) and this year, PCP MEPs intervened in plenary “more than 250” times, put about 400 questions to the European Commission and the Council, as well as 2,050 explanations of vote and were responsible for the “monitoring of 43 reports”, four of them as rapporteurs, according to information from the party.
In presenting the balance sheet, MEP Sandra Pereira also reinforced the ‘flags’ of the PCP in Strasbourg, namely wage equality between member states and the rejection of impositions on the production apparatus of each country.
Source: DN
