Voters in Britain and in the Netherlands cast their ballots on Thursday, the start of four days of voting across the EU for the European Parliament.

Portugal’s date for voting is Sunday, 25 May, along with most of the EU’s 28 member countries.

Business activity in the euro region was marked by steady growth during May, according to a respected business survey.

The latest research from Markit indicated that business in the eurozone did enjoy some growth.

Spain lost out on its chance to host the 2020 Olympics due to its stance over Gibraltar, according to a senior British politician.

Sir Graham Watson, the MEP for South West England and Gibraltar, said that when diplomatic tensions began spiralling between Spain and the UK, David Cameron threatened to block Madrid’s bid if Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy did not reduce its hard line stance.

Portugal's financial deficit is now 132.4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as at the end of April. In late 2013, the Portuguese public debt was in a sorry enough state at 129% of GDP, or €213,631 million.

There is a crumb of comfort that this state of affairs is an improvement of €287 million over the same period last year but this is like saying the Titanic’s engines were working well.

U.S. investment funds Apollo Global Management and Centerbridge Capital Partners are interested in purchasing the retail banking assets of Barclays in Portugal and Spain.

The British bank has started the sale process for its Iberian branch networks but aims to retain its high net worth private clients and corporate accounts in Portugal.

An audit requested by the Bank of Portugal into the accounts of Espirito Santo International detected "irregularities," according to BES which said the international bank is to be reorganised.

The Securities Commission report comes after an external audit into the bank between September 30, 2013 and December 31, 2013 "found irregularities in their accounts and concluded that the bank is in a serious financial situation.”

The audit committee of the Espírito Santo Financial Group (ESFG) “also identified material irregularities in the accounts,” although it took an external report for the bank to admit to the situation.

In the face of a government decision announced earlier this week to maintain the suspension of roadworks on the Algarve’s overloaded EN125 road, work is to resume, according to a well-timed pre-election announcement.

Estradas de Portugal stated today that it has reached agreements with the subcontractors for the Algarve coastline road that will save the taxpayer €507 million and that work on the road will resume in July.

New "more youthful" uniform for Portugal’s Public Security Police (Polícia de Segurança Pública) will cost €6 million a year.

In the face of severe cuts to all public services in Portugal, smart new uniforms in sky blue that have been designed to make the wearer look "more youthful," will cost € 6 million per year as the current dark blue uniform is phased out.