Here we are presenting the slate of CDU candidates for the European Parliament.

Twenty-nine candidates who, together with all of us, with all the activists, all the supporters, all the militants, all the forces that together with the PCP make up the CDU, the Ecologist Party “The Greens”, the Democratic Intervention Association, independents without party affiliation, all those who will join us in the CDU, will continue to span the country, affirm the CDU and valorise its work, its proposals and distinctive project.

On June 9, those who work and have worked all their lives, those who produce wealth, those who study, those who have their own small business, those who are forced to look for another destination because they cannot find living conditions here, to all of these, we appeal to mobilise and vote for the CDU, for its strength, and for those who know and feel their problems, and who will bring to the European Parliament, as has been the case so far, answers and solutions to their claims and aspirations.

Only those who are part of the people, the workers and believe in this Country can be a firm voice in defence of the interests of the people, the workers, the Country.

We will be the courageous voice in the European Parliament that confronts monopolies and multinationals and that fearlessly and without hesitation denounces the effects of European capitalist integration.

We will be the coherent voice that says what it does and does what it says whether here, in Brussels or Strasbourg.

We will be, as until now, the consistent voice that knows that an alternative, patriotic and left-wing policy is urgently needed to stop the path of injustice and dependence.

On the other side there will be no shortage of those who, supported by large means and resources, will continue to try to deceive reality and make the European Union the best of all worlds.

With all the means and instruments at their disposal, they will try to convince that there is only one and possible path, and that we all have to align with the deepening of neoliberalism, federalism and militarism, which is the hallmark and goal of the capitalist integration of the EU.

These are the same people who, trying to disguise their fundamental objectives, will insist that we need to be careful with wage increases; they will try to convince us that public services, for the sake of something, will have to be conditioned to the so-called rules of the Budgetary Treaty, which translated means a stranglehold only on our lives and a strong squeeze on public services.

A path and a tactic that we know quite well.

The tactic of bad and evil, first of all, to lead public services to more than a certain incapacity to respond, and then present liberalisation and privatisation as a solution, for the sake of the colossal accumulation of profits for a few.

Those, who argue that States should be prohibited from supporting public companies, but at the same time consider that they should always be available to hand over millions of euros of public resources to economic groups and multinationals.

Those same who look at housing as just another market product, or who think that healthcare is a business like any other; those who put the green stamp on big business and taxes, but who don't give a damn about the environment.

Those who sell us the Euro as the eighth wonder of the world, but who do everything to hide the fact that, since Portugal entered this adventure, it has only experienced economic stagnation, low wages, deterioration of investment and public services.

Those same who do everything they can to hide that the scandalous increase in interest rates imposed by the ECB, with the impacts we know on mortgage loan instalments and small businesses, has everything to do with the loss of monetary sovereignty.

But these are the same people who, in an extremely irresponsible way, will demand, in the name of a war that needs to be stopped and not fuelled, that more public resources be transferred to the purchase and production of weapons, to escalate the war, instead of necessary investment in healthcare, education, housing, and so many other needs and rights of the people.

These are the same ones who, convinced or even deluded and intoxicated with the so-called European project, do not hesitate and will not hesitate to resort to lies and distortion, about those who reject war and seek the paths of Peace.

To all of them, but above all, to the workers, the people and the young people, we say: here is the CDU, here are our people, who are your candidates, here are future MPs in the European Parliament; who are there and will be there to defend the Country, the workers, the people and the youth, and to do this we need to face those who believe they are the owners and masters of our lives.

Those who think that, because they have a new political framework serving their interests, they have a free hand.

They think, they wish, they wanted it to be that way, but they are very mistaken.

Here is the CDU, here are these candidates that we present today, to stand up to them and to stand up to this project, which is not about the peoples, which is not about cooperation, which is not about rights, sovereignty or Peace.

Here is the CDU to build the electoral results of the workers, the people, the youth and the Country.

Here are these candidates and this CDU so that choices can be made: either we elect CDU MPs, to defend the people and the Country before the European Union, or we elect MPs to defend the European Union before Portugal.

Either we vote for the CDU and give strength to the need to face impositions and defend national sovereignty, or we give up on all of this.

Either we demand Peace without hesitation and without any buts, or else we embark on the path of militarism, the European army and war.

Either we defend, as the CDU does, the environment, or we are pushed to mask policies of environmental predation and the favouring of multinationals, including those of energy.

Either we have a vision marked by patriotic and internationalist values, with the opening of our relations to all continents and geographies of the world, as is actually present in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, or we subject ourselves to the captivity and isolation of our external relations.

This is the time to make choices and to choose.

We need more CDU MPs to defend Portugal in the European Union, because there are already too many MPs to defend the European Union in Portugal, its project and goals.

We do not need MPs in the European Parliament who are more of the same, who are at the service of the handful who earn every day with the EU's options, we do need MPs who take there and are the voice of the workers and the people and that face the impositions, constraints and submission that Portugal is subject to.

We need MPs, like those from the CDU, who know the people's problems and aspirations better than anyone.

And they know and feel, not because they heard about it, but because they were there and are close to the problems, close to the populations, because they are there looking for solutions to the problems. They are there every day for wages and pensions, against privatisations, for public services, for the right to housing.

It is meaningful and important that the CDU goes further in the EP elections.

And this is also a goal of all those who are not deluded and are fighting the AD Government and its project of exploitation, impoverishment and submission to the EU.

If the worker, when he votes, votes for change, for increased wages, against precariousness and unregulated working hours, for pensions, for the defence of public services, against injustices, against the Europe of monopolies, if that is the case, then the vote is for the CDU.

If the worker, when he votes, votes for change, votes for the defence of national production, this vote can only be for the CDU.

This vote that does not accept the Country's increasing dependence, on this Country of ours where there are those who want to transform it into a beautiful tourist resort.

While we go about making petty conversations, the Country is increasingly dependent.

To produce here what the EU wants us to buy abroad, to defend our agriculture and our fisheries, to promote our industry and scientific research; the vote is CDU.

It is the vote that does not accept the banning of the word Peace and that opposes war and the arms race.

It is the vote of courage, which states that war, whether in Ukraine or Palestine, only serves those who are filling their pockets at the expense of the people's misfortune.

The vote for the CDU is the vote that defends the environment and does not accept transforming it into yet another new business area.

It is the vote that fights the right and the extreme right, hate speech, racism and xenophobia from the reactionary forces that in Portugal and Europe want a return to the dark past.

It is the vote that fights privatisations, tax havens, corruption, and the interests of big capital that promote and fund these forces.

It is a vote in defence of freedom, democracy, and the values of April to which the CDU is committed.

It is the vote that fights for national sovereignty, to guarantee that the people are masters of their future.

To ensure how, when and where we apply our resources and guarantee the well-being of the population without asking permission from Brussels, Berlin or Washington.

Each one of us is, and will be, an agent of clarification and will have to call, and will call, others to be so.

Let's fight, let's show that the CDU in the European Parliament is essential, because its voice is irreplaceable.

The CDU's voice to defend Portugal in the EU is irreplaceable.

What is needed is for the voice of workers, young people, women, pensioners, immigrants, emigrants, small farmers, fishermen, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs to be strengthened in the European Parliament too.

Those with whom we are every day, no matter what.

Let no one miss the call.