Jorge Miguel Teixeira’s historic rise to become a member of Portugal’s parliament started long before any vote had been cast in the May 2025 election that made him an MP at just 31 years of age. 

It started long before he became National Coordinator for Portugal in 2019 and revitalized Students For Liberty’s operations there.

It started, of course, well before his first run for mayor of his small town of Barreiro in 2017, at age 23, when he ran knowing he wouldn’t win, but because, “We needed someone to run as a classical liberal in a town which was dominated by the Communist Party.”

It even started before Jorge was invited to join Students For Liberty in 2016. He had completed a BA in philosophy in 2015, and was becoming more interested in classical liberalism but didn’t know how to activate that interest.

“As long as I can remember, ever since I was a kid, I have wanted to be in parliament,” he said. “But what’s funny is that SFL opened my eyes to how much you can do without being in politics, that there’s a world of difference you can make elsewhere. And SFL helped me realize that this is the kind of job you actually shouldn’t want too much — that you shouldn’t be too desperate for. I can’t tell you how liberating that was.” 

Thanks to that mindset, Jorge said, his personality isn’t tied to being an MP. “If it ends tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll be ok.”

But as long as he’s in parliament, he might as well make it meaningful. As one of nine MPs from the Liberal Initiative party, he’s going to dedicate himself to fighting “extensive state intervention,” as he put it. “Our voice is basically alone, but I know I’m exposing people to a new way of thinking.”

That voice might be alone, but it is loud.

In just his first month on the job, Jorge has made speeches arguing the Portuguese government is jeopardizing taxpayers by not privatizing the entirety of TAP Airlines (they’re aiming, instead, to privatize 49.9 percent of it). He’s also taken a rare sober and rational stance on AI, arguing that without underlying, accurate data as an input, AI won’t help people solve problems.

“If the government doesn’t even know how many students are without teachers, or if it doesn’t know the actual price of a surgery in the public health system (which it doesn’t), we shouldn’t pretend AI will somehow, magically come to the rescue,” he said. 

In the future, as part of parliament’s Energy and Efficiency Committee, Jorge will work on streamlining permits and licenses for engineers and overhauling legislation on environmental reviews. He’s also passionate about instituting a flat tax in Portugal and about reducing government intervention in forest management. And in his capacity with the European Affairs committee, he’ll be able to defend the principles of local government against interference from Brussels and beyond.

“I know I made a lot of my friends in SFL proud.”

When he reflected on his time with Students For Liberty, Jorge said he developed practical skills in team-building, organizational strategy, and long-term planning with SFL. He also discovered a hidden strength there: public speaking, which earned him spots on major stages throughout Europe.

“LibertyCon Europe changed my political life,” he said. “I met so many impressive people and it changed how I saw SFL and how I saw myself. I had an urgent feeling that I wanted to do better — for myself and for the movement in Portugal.” 

As National Coordinator, he focused on building a team that could outlast him. He said, “SFL has been in Portugal since 2013, but when I joined, it was losing steam because some of the older coordinators were leaving. I felt strongly that more people in Portugal needed to know about SFL. So my goal was simple: to recruit people who are interested in liberty and had the potential to engage internationally.”

And in retrospect, that’s his proudest legacy: revitalizing SFL Portugal. But Jorge’s engagement with SFL didn’t stop at graduation. As an alumnus, he has continued to support the community by mentoring students, speaking at events, and sharing his experience with emerging leaders. In 2022, he represented the alumni community at the St. Gallen Symposium, joining global policymakers, scholars, and business leaders to discuss ideas shaping the future.

He said he’s so eager to continue building the Students For Liberty community because he’s so grateful to it. “One of my first thoughts when I was elected was, ‘I know I made a lot of my friends in SFL proud,’” he said. “SFL was a massive confidence booster for me. A lot of people were very shy in the beginning, quite insecure about themselves, and now they are completely different people. SFL makes people better prepared for anything they want to do in life.”

Jorge Miguel Teixeira’s voice is, for now, a relatively lonely one — in parliament, in Portugal, in Europe. But it’s a voice that is growing in strength and finding causes it can support. It’s a voice he found with Students For Liberty.

Read more, directly from Jorge’s voice: in Improving Everyday Life Through Liberty, and below, in our email interview with him, lightly edited for clarity.

How did you become an SFLer, and what motivated you to join?

The chance to connect with a global network of like-minded young people. The intellectual energy, the openness to ideas, and the international scope were exactly the experiences I didn’t know I needed — and didn’t yet have in my local context. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.

How has SFL influenced your growth?

It taught me the value of initiative, especially in a country where civil society is weak and often passive. Through SFL, I learned how to think seriously about leadership and organization, how to build effective teams, how to act based on real theories of change, and how to set goals that are concrete, consistent, and realistic. 

It shaped how I approach activism and politics, and equally important, it gave me an international experience that’s invaluable for any young student. Widening your horizons early gives you an edge; it helps you break out of local limitations, overcome cultural habits, and aim higher. 

I still remember my first European retreat in 2016, where I met 20-somethings who were already founding think tanks. My perspective changed immediately. Now, I’m always on the lookout for my next project.

I also discovered I was a better public speaker than I thought. But what I’m still most happy about is picking up the National Coordinator position of SFL Portugal at a time when it was struggling. I’m proud to say that the work paid off. SFL Portugal has been active and accomplishing great things ever since, now going strong for approaching a decade.

What advice would you give to students or young leaders wanting to make a difference?

Here’s a list of things I’d tell a younger me.

1. Exercise self-knowledge. Know your strengths, your limits, and what truly motivates you. Don’t waste time trying to be someone else; play to your strengths. But don’t let that stop you from testing new skills, as long as you’re honest with yourself about what you’re doing. 

And write — a lot — for yourself. Write down emotions, impressions, thoughts. Brainstorm with yourself. That’s maturity.

2. Show up. Talk to people, go to events, make friends. It all compounds over time. This applies to almost every environment that matters — and SFL is one of the best “schools” you could go to to learn this.

3. Ask questions. Most people operate on two poor assumptions: that asking questions makes you look dumb, and that the person you’d ask has it all figured out anyway. Neither is true. In fact, many things in the world run on the assumption that people won’t ask many questions — this clearly applies to governments, but really applies to anything involving humans. Staying curious and willing to probe is one of the fastest ways to learn and gain your edge.

4. Seek impact. Doing things just because we enjoy them is good. Even better is figuring out how the things we enjoy can make the world better. Always ask yourself how to maximize your impact with the skills you have — and whether your actions are truly making people’s lives better, because that’s what this is all about.