The Secretary of State for the Environment, Carlos Martins, has repaid the fiddled housing subsidy that he has been claiming, while claiming he has done nothing wrong.

"By decision of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Carlos Martins, was determined to return the housing allowance money that had received from the beginning of his government functions," read a ‘clarification’ from the office of the Minister of the Environment.

Austria’s highest court has annulled the country’s recent presidential elections and called for a re-run.

The Constitutional Court upheld the challenge made by the far-right Freedom Party which suffered a narrow defeat in May.

Party leader Norbert Hofer lost by only 30,863 votes to Alexander Van der Bellen, an independent candidate supported by the Green Party.

In a turnaround that has left taxi drivers’ unions in disarray, the government said today that Uber, the web-based transport service, will be fully legal and operational by the end of the summer.

In response to taxi drivers injunctions to halt Uber in its tracks, the government agreed to set up a working party, usually the kiss of death to any new initiative, which has decided that Uber indeed is the way forward for customer choice and to mark Portugal as a go-ahead country that embraces changing ways of doing business.

The budget airline easyJet has said it has applied to a number of European countries to get authorisation to continue flying throughout Europe.

It said it has been in talks with non-UK regulators to obtain an air operator certificate (AOC).

The strike action planned to start this morning July 1st was called off at the last moment as the baggage handling staff turned up for work as usual.

The Friday to Monday strike would have caused untold chaos at Portugal's main airports, especially in the Algarve where Faro is expecting record passenger throughput this weekend.

Santander and Millennium BCP have tempered their earlier enthusiasm having analysed the figures and have decided not to bid for Novo Banco, but the Bank of Portugal has received four binding proposals, not that it will say who these are from.

The offers for Novo Banco, the bridge bank ‘resolution’ to the August 2014 collapse of Banco Espírito Santo, will be considered "in the light of the eligibility and selection criteria set out in the specifications."

The chaos that was Vilamoura is to be a thing of the past as the council and local associations have worked out a plan to make tourists safe and welcome - and most importantly there is a new plan to sort out the traffic.

Loulé council, Inframoura, Loulé Concelho Global, Vilamoura World, Associação de Empresários de Quarteira e Vilamoura, Associação Vilamoura Visitors, Residents & Conventions Bureau and the GNR have been having fruitful meetings to establish what can be done to make the holiday experience a more pleasant one.

The planned industrial action at all of Portugal’s airports is to start on Friday July 1st and continue over the weekend as talks have failed to produce a solution to long-running labour problems.

A meeting earlier in the week between airport workers’ unions and Minister Pedro Marqeus resulted in an impasse so the planned 'biggest ever airport strike' is to go ahead on one of the busiest periods of the year for tourism.