In a campaign action in Estremoz, in the district of Évora, António Tânger Corrêa said that Chega does not support Ursula von der Leyen "at all".

"We fight, both in national territory and abroad, corruption, and Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen is linked to cases of corruption. For us, it is unacceptable [and] more serious than the management of the Commission that she has done, which is also serious," he justified.

Chega's campaign started today in Estremoz, around lunchtime. The heat that was felt and the absence of people in the street transformed the planned street parade into a short walk in the center of that Alentejo city. As usual, the party's president, André Ventura, was with the candidates.

Chega's candidate for MEP was also asked by journalists if Portugal should recognize Palestine as a State, following the example of Spain.

"Certainly not. Fortunately, the wife of our prime minister will not be indicted by the justice system, because that is the real reason why Spain did what it did," he replied.

And he questioned what would be recognized at this stage: "Do you want to explain what the State of Palestine is? Is it the West Bank, is it the Gaza Strip? It has no territorial continuity... Who is in charge of Palestine? Is it Fatah, is it Hamas, who are the real holders? And the three million Palestinians who are in Jordan, nobody thought about them, did they? Because from one day to the next they can cause very serious problems in Jordan and to the whole world."

António Tânger Corrêa said that Chega "is in favor of the creation of two States, but with conditions", stating that "recognizing something that is not a country, that cannot be a country, no".

"First peace, and second a negotiation to see who can somehow manage Palestine," he defended, considering that recognition as a State should not happen while that region is still the scene of a war.

"As long as there is a conflict, no, then yes," he defended.

The former ambassador considered that "it is an act of great frivolity to recognize Palestine" and that "it will not solve" the conflict.

"There have already been, since the creation of the State of Israel, five attempts to create two States," he said, referring to the fact that "in all five it was the Palestinians who denied it".

Tânger Corrêa stated that "Palestine as such is an English creation of the 19th century", in which "all that territory was inhabited by numerous ethnic groups, it was not only Palestinians as they want us to believe now, and they lived more or less in peace, with the normal abrasions between tribes".

Regarding the arrest warrants of the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leader of the extremist group Hamas, the candidate classified it as "cosmetic pressure, it is more pressure in which the ICC makes a decision that is unenforceable on one side and on the other".

Also asked if Europe is having double standards in its approach to the war in Ukraine and this conflict, Chega's vice-president defended that "the war in the Gaza Strip is a war of hatred, which is not the case in Ukraine, in Ukraine it is a war of occupation".

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