Member of the European Parliament, 2009–2024 Rangel was a
Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the
2009 European elections. Ahead of the
2014 European elections, the PSD named Rangel at the top of their list. In the
2019 European elections, he served as his party's lead candidate again. In parliament, Rangel served on the
Committee on Constitutional Affairs from 2009. In that capacity, he drafted the parliament's 2010 report on the framework agreement between the
European Commission and the Parliament, which demanded that MEPs should be allowed to participate in international negotiations that lead to accords that need parliamentary backing. In 2014, he became the committee's vice-chairman. He became a member of the Working Group on the
Conference on the Future of Europe. In 2019, Rangel also joined
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. In this capacity, he served as the parliament's
rapporteur on Croatia's accession to the
Schengen zone. In addition to his committee assignments, Rangel served on the parliament's delegations for to the
ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (2017–2019) and for relations with the United States (2019–2014), Brazil (2014–2017), Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo (2021–2024), and Montenegro (2021–2024). Upon entering the parliament, Rangel was chosen as one of the vice-presidents of the
European People's Party Group. Within the
European People's Party, he chaired the Working Group on EPP Membership from 2016. In this capacity, he notably decided to suspend the
Fidesz party in 2020. In 2021, he was also appointed to the
EPP group's task force for proposing changes to its rules of procedure to allow for "the possibility of the collective termination of membership of a group of Members rather than just individual membership", alongside
Esteban González Pons,
Jan Olbrycht,
Esther de Lange and
Othmar Karas.
Role in national politics During his time in parliament, Rangel launched a bid for the leadership of the PSD in
2010 but ultimately came second and lost against
Pedro Passos Coelho. In 2021, he again announced his candidacy for the leadership of the PSD and demanded a more assertive opposition to
Prime Minister António Costa's Socialist government; in the vote held in
November 2021, he was defeated by incumbent
Rui Rio. ==Other activities==