Talk of the “French Invasion” in terms of property investment has suddenly turned to “the Turkish discovery of Portugal” - bringing with it as much as €300 million in investment, just this year.
Media reports are highlighting just how attractive Portugal has become for the country that has been struggling for decades to get EU membership, and which is now as far from achieving it as it ever was.
Pushing forwards with State bank CGD’s recovery plan - agreed with Brussels - the institution’s new president Paulo Macedo has warned that additional cuts to staff and branches could well be in the wings, particularly if targets are not met.
The warning comes as populations everywhere are protesting to the closure of branches as the bank struggles to shake off its legacy of debts.
In its annual report published today, the European Central Bank shows itself to be distinctly ‘sniffy’ over Portugal’s lucky sanctions escape for failing to keep to budgetary guidelines in 2015.
According to Britain’s Express, “Spain and Portugal shouldn’t have been let off the hook” as the strict European ‘economy rules’ are there for a reason: to prevent a financial crisis.
Almaraz - the purported ‘time-bomb’ that environmentalists are fighting to shut down on the banks of the Tejo river - has suffered two new malfunctions in the space of three days, though authorities insist that the situation is stable.
The incidents - the last of which happened on Monday - have been highlighted by Iberia’s Anti-Nuclear Movement and the Portuguese association “Ecologists in Action”.
A 46-year-old Spanish holidaymaker is in intensive care in Faro after plunging three floors onto concrete from an Albufeira hotel.
The 10-metre fall happened at the four-star Real Bellavista shortly after midnight on Monday (April 10).
According to Spanish authorities, they have “never seen anything like it”.
A thousand Portuguese students on an organised school trip to celebrate the looming end of their 12th year studies apparently went on a destructive rampage through a Torremolinos hotel, leaving a trail of damages stretching well into the many thousands of euros.
Newspaper reports say the hotel will be giving a press conference tomorrow.
Jailbreak fugitive Joaquim Bitton Matos continues to cause havoc over social media. After posing with an M4 rifle on Facebook and boasting that the authorities could never find him (click here), he has now been conversing with journalists - allegedly telling them that prison guards at Caxias jail, near Lisbon, were complicit in his escape seven weeks ago.
According to reports, Matos has given reporters the names of four prison guards who not only took bribes to look the other way, but smuggled “special material” into cells to enable Matos and two Chileans to make their high-profile escapes.
Portugal’s much-loved and now former political leader famous for what one European newspaper called his “teflon qualities” (“the dirt has never stuck”) is suddenly back in the hotseat, accused by a construction company of using his “influence” to win a €20 million project for the company that currently employs him.
According to the story carried by multiple news sources, Portas allegedly brought pressure to bear on an initial evaluation which favoured Ourém company Tecnorém over eight other bids - including a pitch from engineering giant Mota-Engil.
