"Our goal is the one we defined at last year's convention, which is to elect a Member of the European Parliament and, if the campaign goes well, to have the ambition to do more", said the liberal candidate to journalists, on what is the first official day of the campaign for the European elections.

At the end of a street campaign in Lisbon, which began at Campo Pequeno and ended at Saldanha, João Cotrim de Figueiredo stressed that the IL is the only party that has an "integrated, global and complete vision of Europe" and that "is not here to do national politics at the expense of European policies".

What the IL wants is "only for Europe to grow, for Europe to be a space of freedom, peace and prosperity because that benefits Portugal", he said.

"We have to recognise that throughout these days we have not seen projects with the same type of consistency", he said.

João Cotrim de Figueiredo, who was accompanied by the party president, Rui Rocha, on the street campaign, assumed that if he has a bad result the responsibility will clearly be his, but if it is good it will be "shared with the whole team".

As for the main opponent, the IL candidate for the European elections pointed to abstention and appealed to people to vote early on 2 June from anywhere in the country or on 9 June.

"Go and vote. Then, when you are there, since you are there, vote for the Liberal Initiative because it is the one with the most consistent project", he insisted.

During the street campaign, which lasted more than an hour, João Cotrim de Figueiredo asked people to vote and not to undervalue the European elections.

Halfway through the route, the liberal candidate came across a gentleman who admitted to not voting for the IL.

"Yet", replied João Cotrim de Figueiredo, who then asked: "Do not deny from the outset a science that you do not know".

At a terrace, the liberal top candidate for the European elections met a couple "super interested in European affairs" who promised him their vote.

Faced with the promise of a vote, João Cotrim de Figueiredo took the opportunity to leave some leaflets under the title "On holiday on the 9th? Vote before on the 2nd" so that the couple could distribute them and thus convince more people to vote for the IL.

The last European elections, in 2019, were the first electoral act in which the IL stood (after its foundation in 2017), having obtained less than 30,000 votes (0.88% of the total).

Read also: European elections. Debate between AD, PS, IL and Livre on SIC was the most watched (Portuguese version)