Nuno Melo’s normal week moves between Lisbon, Porto, Brussels/Strasbourg and the farm he has restored in Joane, where he takes refuge wherever he can among the trees that allow him to vent his peasant life. “It’s been a very intense pace,” he laughs, arriving at the bar of the Hotel Altis, still finishing the working lunch with his deputy Paulo Nuncio following our conversation. We order coffee and go through the challenges of the leader of a historic party, but who is experiencing the most difficult moment in its history, after being left out of the Assembly of the Republic in parliamentary elections a year ago, despite the solid municipal base and the of the presence in the European Parliament.
Nuno Melo, a member of the European Parliament since 2009, has to divide his time between Europe and the country where he has his family, his farm and where he tries to strengthen the Christian Democrats. “Now it would be good to go back to Portugal, but for that you need to have the votes. I take the party at the most difficult moment, but we have significant party relevance, also compared to other parties that are in the AR”, emphasized he, while listing the 1500 mayors, six chambers that the party governs solo, another 40 in coalition and the presence in the regional governments of Madeira and the Azores and in the European Parliament. “But we have lost the parliamentary group, and that means we are losing a lot of funding and media attention, fundamental tools for those who make politics.”
Source: DN
