The researcher and leader of the Livre party was speaking to journalists at the door of the Constitutional Court (TC), in Lisbon, accompanied by a small entourage that did not include the spokesperson Rui Tavares, nor any current member of parliament of the party. When questioned about this absence, Paupério justified that Rui Tavares is in "parliamentary work" and that the internal process took place "very quickly", since the list was only approved on Sunday night by the Assembly, the highest body between congresses, after a primary process that generated some internal discord. "Of course we have the support of the party, the list was approved yesterday, and the list was submitted, and now we are ready for the electoral campaign," guaranteed Paupério, accompanied by the leader Patrícia Robalo, a member of the current leadership of the party. Paupério rejected having been discouraged by the vote on the list he heads -- which was approved on Sunday in the Assembly with 13 votes in favor, 18 abstentions, and six against -- and insisted that he has the confidence not only of Rui Tavares but also of "all the bodies of the party." "I understand that it is a subject that is being discussed, but the truth is that all the bodies participated in these primaries, and the bodies are sovereign, the bodies decided, and we are united in this campaign from now on," he stressed. When asked if Livre will rethink the primary process, Paupério replied: "Livre will do the reflection that it has to do in relation to this process and will certainly discuss this matter internally, in the future." Regarding whether he will fulfill his mandate, the leader of Livre replied that this is his intention and that of the party. "I don't see any problem with that," he added. Paupério wants to focus the campaign on European issues and show "why it is important to have Livre in the European Parliament." "This will be the last plenary session until 2030 in which we will try to at least prevent the direction in which we are currently heading, which is the climate crisis, the direction of increasing inequalities. This is the last plenary session in the European Parliament in which we will be able to change this course and make Europe more social, greener, and more democratic," he said. Francisco Paupério is 28 years old, is from Leça da Palmeira, in Matosinhos, and his profession is researcher. He has a degree in biology, specializing in bioinformatics, from the Faculties of Sciences of the Universities of Porto and Lisbon, and is currently completing his doctorate in Integrative Biology and Biomedicine at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science. He was number three for the party in the Porto constituency in the March legislative elections. In the last European elections, in 2019, Rui Tavares was the top candidate for Livre, with Joacine Katar Moreira as 'number two', who that year was elected deputy to the Assembly of the Republic and lost the party's political confidence about two months later. At the time, the party obtained 1.83% of the votes, equivalent to 60,575 ballots, which was not enough to be elected. Read Also: Europeias. 17 partidos e coligações concorrem às eleições de 9 de junho (Portuguese version)