Is the Bloc ambiguous about Europe? Catarina Martins, head of the BE list, responds to Daniel Oliveira

The first elections in which the Left Bloc competed, in 1999, were European ones. The head of the list was Miguel Portas and he was not elected – he would be elected in 2004. But that was the first test for the legislative elections of that same year, for a party that had just been born. Portas was an MEP until 2012, the year of his death, with the Bloc electing three deputies in 2009 – the third elected was Rui Tavares, who later left the parliamentary group, remaining in his place. After the death of Miguel Portas, Marisa Matias, who arrived in Brussels in 2009, became head of the list until the last European elections. In other words, in two decades, Bloco only had two list leaders.

Leaving the leadership and the Assembly of the Republic, he is the new head of the Left Bloc list for the European Parliament.

The Bloc, unlike the PS or Livre, is not part of what we could call the European left. But, unlike the PCP, it is not openly eurosceptic. It is not that the debate on Europe ends in this simplistic fracture, which hides more often than it reveals. But the party’s ambiguity seems evident whenever one arrives in Brussels.

It’s more than an interview, it’s less than a debate. It’s a contradictory conversation in which, in the end, it’s the guest’s opinion that matters. Mostly about politics, sometimes about really interesting things. A journalistic project by Daniel Oliveira and João Martins. Graphic image by Vera Tavares with Tiago Pereira Santos and music by Mário Laginha. Subscribe (on Spotify, Apple and Google) and listen to more episodes: