The Communists accuses the European Union of blackmailing Portugal, disregarding national sovereignty

João Almeida, CDS-PP deputy       and     Miguel Tiago, communist deputy

The Communist deputy Miguel Tiago and the deputy of the CDS-PP, 

João Almeida, engaged in an exchange of accusations today, 

about the nature of patriotism of each, with the centrist parliamentary, 

accusing the communist "of confusing patriotism with racism,"

in the context of previous political declarations 

about the negotiations with Brussels 

on the State Budget (OE) for 2016.

Michael Tiago spoke of the "blackmail of the European institutions 

over the national sovereignty" because of the State Budget 

and the fact that CDS had said earlier that no one can question 

their patriotism to argue that 

the country of which they were speaking about, is different.

Miguel Tiago said: 

"Your homeland is that of big business concerns and the shareholders 

and the homeland of the Communist Party is the homeland of workers, 

the lives of the workers, the welfare of the pensioners 

and we do not measure the welfare of the Portuguese homeland 

on the stock exchange neither on the value of the shares of big business. 

And much less do we limit our patriotism by walking around 

with the national flag on our lapel 

while paying allegiance to Germany."

João Almeida said that the centrists never said 

"that a Portuguese was more important than another Portuguese": 

"You have no right to say that being a patriot or a Portuguese 

is someone discriminated for being rich or being poor, 

being from a particular social origin or from another social origin, 

of having a certain ideological orientation 

or another ideological orientation, 

is less patriotic. "

"What you did here was to confuse patriotism with racism. 

We do not distinguish people by race or caste, 

all Portuguese are equal, and deserve equal dignity 

and deserve equal respect and are accountable for their actions 

to the Portuguese State, which is fortunately a democratic state. 

and no one can impose other rules than those, 

the rules of respect for human rights 

and for the Portuguese state, " 

Almeida said.