gfortran make error: "- recompile with -fPIC"

I am encountering an error when compiling a fortran program: since I have a makefile provided, I open the working directory in the terminal and type make. Unfortunately I get this error:

relocation R_X86_64_32S against `.rodata.str1.1' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC
/usr/bin/ld: final link failed: Nonrepresentable section on output
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
makefile:43: recipe for target '<name>' failed

Actually I don't get how to "recompile with -fPIC".
I've tried typing make -fPIC and adding something like:

CFLAGS = -fPIC
CXXFLAGS = -fPIC

to the makefile, but both haven't worked.
Any help is appreciated, thanks.

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