Greetings Mr. President. The duties you are assuming once again are of enormous importance to the proper functioning of the Assembly of the Republic, as a sovereign body that must focus its attention on what really matters to the people, responding to their wishes and aspirations, for a Country of development and progress. There can be no room for offence, insult, discrimination or hate.

We will intervene as always, openly, honestly and seriously at institutional level and in the political debate. With firmness and combativeness in the confrontation between political projects.

Complying with and enforcing the Constitution is not an act of circumstance. It is a commitment. It has to correspond to reality, in everyday life, in the functioning of democratic institutions and in people's lives. What is required is compliance with the rights, freedoms and guarantees enshrined in the Constitution.

Mr. President,

In a democracy, the investiture of the Assembly of the Republic is an important moment that cannot ignore life out there.

It cannot ignore the lives of those who make the Country work, the lives of those who have worked their entire lives, of the youth.

It cannot ignore the lives of thousands of workers who leave for work at dawn, often returning late at night, and at the end of the month take home the national minimum wage or little more.

Nor can it ignore the thousands of workers who work shifts, continuous labour, night work, with all the deregulation that this means for their lives, often without being able to follow the growth of their children.

It cannot ignore the lives of thousands of workers with precarious contracts, whose only certainty is the uncertainty of tomorrow.

It cannot ignore the youth, with their dreams continuously postponed, who are unable to leave their parents' home or are forced to emigrate.

Nor the women, when equality in law is not equality in life.

The first day of this Term of Parliament cannot ignore the thousands of users who are denied access to the healthcare they are entitled to, without a family doctor, queuing in the rain and sun at dawn to try to get an appointment, waiting and despairing for an appointment or surgery, or pregnant women who never know what they can count on with the closure of gynaecology and obstetrics emergency services.

Nor can it ignore the families evicted from their homes because they cannot afford the speculative leases and many of them end up returning to their parents' home or living in garages, shops, camping sites or precarious housing.

Much less can we ignore the accumulation of astronomical profits by the economic groups, while the people live in greater hardship.

This is no time for complacency, much less lie in wait. It's time for combat, action and struggle.

In a negative institutional and political framework for the people and the Country, the PCP will give a voice to the workers, pensioners, youth, women, immigrants, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, small farmers and fishermen.

It will fight right-wing politics and the favouring of economic groups, showing that these options serve neither the people nor the Country. It will intervene with concrete proposals and solutions that respond to people's lives.

And we have already started today with the presentation of five proposals: an increase in the national minimum wage to 1,000 euros in July of this year, a special increase in pensions totalling 5%, with a minimum of 70 euros with effect from January 2025; valorisation of healthcare professionals to keep them in the NHS and guarantee healthcare for users; limitation of housing rents update in new contracts to protect tenants and the recognition of the State of Palestine.

The PCP is here with initiative and determination to confront the right and the reactionary projects. It is here to fight for an alternative policy in which people's lives matter, and which projects the values and achievements of April into Portugal's future.

We will honour our commitments to defend the interests of the workers, the people and the Country.

The workers and the people are counting on the PCP to build a path of hope and confidence in a better life!