Although he has not announced how Chega will vote on the State Budget for 2026 (OE2026), André Ventura criticized this Thursday (October 9) the Government’s intention to change the fuel tax.
Before a lunch with Miguel Corte-Real, Chega’s candidate for Porto municipality, the party president left a “warning” to the Government: “If you are truly counting on keeping the tax burden high and increasing fuel prices, there’s not much of a way, frankly, to do. It is a warning of what is important to us. This was a document delivered today [quinta-feira]I hope there are conditions for it to be changed.”
According to André Ventura, the “information” given by the Executive is “contradictory”. After all, there is “an expectation of a significant increase in revenue from fuel taxes, but there are sources that indicate an expectation of increased consumption.”
Without venturing into explanations for this possible contradiction, André Ventura throws out a possibility: “What I think is that there will be a reduction in the discounts and support in force on the carbon tax. If this happens, it is a very bad sign. People cannot continue to pay exaggerated prices for fuel in Portugal.”
With an “exponential increase in tax revenue” expected, the president of Chega accused the Government of “defrauding people and expectations”. After all, if an “exponential increase in tax revenue” is expected, this means that “in practice, there will be no fiscal relief felt.”
Then focusing on another aspect of the document, André Ventura said he was “structurally against” maintaining social support. Even so, the leader of the second largest party in terms of number of deputies expressed conviction that this issue will be “analyzed and negotiated”. “Contrary to what you told us, the Government maintains the same level of Social Insertion Income, of minimum income to be awarded, in terms of values. I don’t understand why an understanding can’t be reached.“, these.
Are all these red lines for budget negotiations with the Government? “These are fundamental questions“, replied Ventura, asserting that there is a “commitment to reducing the tax burden on people, not increasing it”.
André Ventura also said that “there are aspects that had been analyzed and discussed” with Chega (not specifying which ones), and asked that “fiscal issues should be discussed first with the parties, especially those from whom viability is expected”.
In fact, during the morning, even before OE2026 was known, the leader of Chega had already shown little hope that the Government would meet the demands made by his party. But as “even a broken clock is correct twice a day”, Ventura expressed some optimism, but already defined a red line: the “lack of investment in ex-combatants”.