The week of the plenary session in the European Parliament “is hectic”. The clock is already after 11 a.m., a few minutes after the agreed time. Lídia Pereira arrives at Bar dos Cisnes, in the Churchill Building of the European Parliament, in Strasbourg. She is busy and apologizes for being late. Although the highlight of the plenary session (the State of the Union address) took place the day before, the day we spoke was the day of preparatory meetings for each committee. We ordered coffee amid the noise in the background. I also bring a bottle of water that I place on the chosen table. The view is towards the River Ill, which bathes the city. Every now and then a boat or two with tourists passes by. The place, says the MEP, “is beautiful, it’s a shame about the noise”. Nothing that prevents the conversation while sitting at the table. But there is not much time to talk: “The weeks of the plenary meeting are very hectic. We are all here, there are really no excuses to miss meetings.”
At 32 years old, Lídia Pereira has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019. With a degree in economics and a master’s degree in European Economic Studies, she admits that she only entered politics “late, at the age of 20 or 21.” And all thanks to… José Sócrates. “It followed a series of things, but above all the state in which the engineer had left the country. This fueled in me a great need for solidarity and citizen participation in the PSD,” explains Lídia Pereira. Despite the late connection, This desire for civic participation appears several years earlier in his life, “in the fifth year”. “We were very curious and even at that age some teachers asked us to read the news, discuss it with our parents and then talk about it in class. And this soon started to fuel our curiosity about politics a little more” , he explains.
Source: DN
