Mr. Mesquita graduated in political science and international governance and subsequently earned an MA in the comparative history of Central and Eastern Europe. He began his career as an intern at the Office of European Integration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Portugal in 2004 and participated in the team that monitored and reported on the EU’s institutional reform to the ministry’s policy makers. After completing his BA, he moved into the civil society sphere, working for a regional newspaper where he covered local and regional politics and civil society initiatives and liaised with local stakeholders. Having completed his MA in 2007 he joined the REC's Law Development, Enforcement and Compliance Topic Area team as an expert. During the past three and a half years he has participated in project development (writing project proposals and developing project concepts) and management, network communication strategies and PR, the management of international secretariats and the provision of capacity-building trainings.