Following the European elections on 6-9 June, ALDE Party will be represented by a new group of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who will lead the fight for liberal values in the next five years.

In this episode of our series, we shine a spotlight on Iniciativa Liberal from Portugal, led by Rui Rocha.

João Cotrim de Figueiredo

Field of expertise: Economics

In the 2019 Portuguese legislative elections, João Cotrim de Figueiredo was elected Member of Parliament for the Lisbon constituency, becoming the first representative of Iniciativa Liberal in the Assembly of the Republic.  In 2022, he was re-elected with a much higher result.

Cotrim de Figueiredo led IL to become the 4th political force in Portugal, managing to elect 8 deputies in the elections. He was party leader of the party between October 2019 and January 2023. In 2024, he was elected to the European Parliament as the party’s lead candidate.

Ana Vasconcelos Martins

Field of expertise: Law and political science

Ana Vasconcelos Martins was elected member of the European Parliament in 2024. She serves as Vice-President of Iniciativa Liberal, and was the party's lead candidate for the Azores constituency in the 2019 legislative election. For the 2019 European Parliament election, she was an independent candidate in fourth place on the party's list.

Martins was born on Terceira Island, and has lived in Lisbon since the age of 7. She studied law and political science at the Catholic University of Portugal and political theory at the University of Oxford, where she also worked as a research assistant.

Click here to consult our full list of MEPs and read through their bios.