the importance of voting for Chega

The European elections are approaching. Elections that the Portuguese approach with almost total detachment, being used only for voters to express their displeasure with the party that currently governs.

But they do harm. And this is because increasingly the European parliament and the bureaucratic machine in Brussels, which is supervised by the European Commission, speak louder than the Portuguese parliament. This means that, with each passing day, the vote they cast in the European elections weighs more heavily in the life of Portuguese citizens than the vote they cast on the day of the national elections.

A small introduction in very simple words:

The various parties of European nations meet in Brussels, according to their ideological affinities, in the so-called European parties. Focusing on Portugal and our three largest parties, we have the PSD (and the CDS) affiliated with the European party PPE (European People’s Party); the PS in S&D (Socialists & Democrats) and Chega do ID (Identity and Democracy). The PPE (EPP in the English acronym) brings together the Christian Democratic parties and some Social Democrats. The S&D is home to social democratic parties and socialist parties. Finally, the ID brings together part of the conservative and nationalist parties. The ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists) brings together the remaining conservative and nationalist parties (it is the party of Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia and Santiago Abascal’s Vox, with no registered Portuguese party).

Well: of these European parties, there are two that staunchly defend a federal Europe, commanded in a firmly centralized manner from Brussels, that is, a Europe in which all nations will lose their identity and autonomy and become commanded by the Brussels machine. These European parties are the PPE and the S&D, in Portugal represented, respectively, by the PSD (and CDS) and the PS.

On the contrary, there are two European parties that, recognizing the potentialities of a European Union, want it to be limited to its initial version of the Europe of the four freedoms (free movement of people, goods, services and capital), accepting the euro as the single currency European Union but, as far as the process of European construction is concerned, it ends there. These parties defend a Europe of Nations, in which they maintain their roots, traditions, ways of living but, above all, the primacy of their laws and their Constitution. In other words, in Portugal, those who legislate are the deputies for whom every Portuguese person voted in the legislative elections and not some faceless bureaucrats sitting in Brussels.

The European parties that defend this vision of Europe are the ID and the ECR. And the person representing ID in Portugal is Chega.

The choice is simple: whoever, in Portugal, wants to be a mere number in Brussels, can vote for the PSD, CDS or PS.

But anyone who wants to continue living free in a free and truly independent country has only Chega and the European party it represents, ID.

Hence, the growing importance of European elections. They will be the ones to determine who will preside over the Commission. And removing Mrs von der Leyen from the presidency of the Commission is extremely urgent. A lot will depend on this, from the preservation of our identity and our freedom, to the resurgence of our middle class. As we will see next week.