The Financial Times has joined in the rising clamour surrounding the Bank of Portugal’s governor whose recent series of actions have caused international opprobrium, with overseas investors’ trust in Portugal at a depressing and avoidable low.

The recent stripping of investors of €2 billion in bonds held by Novo Banco has affected the principle of equal treatment of debtors, has left large institutions such as Pimco hundreds of millions out of pocket and has left another group of individuals without their life savings.

Spanish prosecutors have called for a 4.5 year prison sentence for the former head of the IMF.

Rodrigo Rato is one of 66 people caught in a scandal in which executives and board members at Caja Madrid and Bankia banks misappropriated money.

A drug trial in France commissioned by Portuguese pharmaceutical company Bial has left one man brain-dead and five others have been rushed to hospital.

The trials in Brittany involved six people tested with an oral medication being developed by a European laboratory in Rennes where the “serious accident” happened, according to French Health Minister, Marisol Touraine.

Portugal's Communist Party’s parliamentary group has submitted a draft resolution to parliament to get the EN125 into shape after years of deliberate neglect by the previous government.

The Communist MPs want the new Socialist Party government to adopt the necessary measures to ensure that the roadworks on the Algarve’s EN125 are completed quickly and demand that Infraestruturas de Portugal gets the job done after years of sodding about.

The Olhão - Faro tourism area has recorded occupancy rates last December, way above the rest of the Algarve region when compared to December 2014.

According to preliminary data released by the Association of Hotels and Resorts in the Algarve (AHETA), the Olhão - Faro area had a December occupancy rate 28% higher than the year before, mainly due to a resurgence of Spanish visitors.

The owners of TAP today said the Government recognises that they are doing "a good job" in managing and reorganising the former State owned company.

As for the government taking back majority control of TAP, as stated in the Socialist Party’s pre-election manifesto, Humberto Pedrosa of Gateway say that he is confident that all parties can reach a good agreement and wants to settle out of court.

Germany’s economy registered healthy growth in 2015 and it will be able to use the surplus to help cover the costs involved in taking in more than one million refugees.

Europe’s biggest economy grew by 1.7% last year, according to the federal statistics office Destatis, after recording growth of 1.3% in 2014.

Last year’s drought in Portugal led to a decrease in the production of renewable energy, down 14.5% compared to 2014.

Despite this slowdown, the production of electricity from renewable sources accounted for the majority of electricity produced in Portugal, some 50.4%, the rest coming from fossil fuels.