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Portrait of Carlos Moedas with the European flag in the background

Carlos Moedas Running for Mayor of Lisbon

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Earlier this month, Carlos Moedas announced his candidacy for Mayor of Lisbon ahead of local elections set to take place across Portugal this autumn. His City Council campaign is already up and running on a platform to bring ‘New Times’ to Lisbon so that the capital is more “centred on people, on solving people’s problems, on technology, on innovation, and on combating climate change”.

Unfortunately, this means he will not be able to continue chairing our Task Force on Sustainable Agriculture and Innovation. While we will greatly miss his leadership and valuable input, we are massively grateful for the insight that he has brought to this initiative in its early stages. We wish him the very best for this new adventure, and it goes without saying that we hope to cooperate with him again in the future, in whatever capacity.

With his enormous experience and broad expertise, we are certain that he will make a significant contribution to the debates which will take place in Lisbon over the coming months, offering solutions to the concerns of the citizens of Europe’s westernmost capital city. In light of our own work as an ‘incubator’ for new political ideas, we will certainly be paying close attention to the proposals he puts before the people of Lisbon, fully aware of the key role that major cities and local governments regularly play as forerunners for creative thinking and pragmatic solutions to issues common across Europe.

As he mentioned when he was Commissioner for Science, Research, and Innovation, “It is important to have well-informed debates on the regulatory framework needed to maintain high levels of protection while enabling innovations that contribute to the environment and wellbeing”. In an increasingly polarised time, this is more important today than ever.