Between 2004 and 2009, he was a European parliamentary deputy, and effective member of various commissions (specifically the Agriculture and Rural Development, Fishing, Climate Change, Environment and Public Health) and participated as auxiliary member or member of the European delegations to Canada and Mercosur. As deputy he participated in the elaboration of several funding reports, among them the POSEI/Agricultura and POSEI/Pescas, in addition to authoring 600 proposals for alterations to 100 documents, and was responsible for the visit by the European Parlimaentary commission on Agriculture and Rural Development to the Azores. In addition he was a speaker to diverse conferences and lectures at academic institutions.