The Energy Services Regulatory Authority will continue "to defend the rights of consumers" in court proceedings brought by EDP which is contesting an instruction to pay €7 million in compensation to customers on bi and tri-hourly tariffs.

EDP has resorted to court in an attempt to avoid paying the compensation to customers who were disadvantaged by the widespread inaccuracy of the meters which had their clocks set incorrectly.

A fire that broke out on Monday night in the Horta da Areia area of Faro has left nine homeless, according to the mayor, Rogério Bacalhau.

Those affected by the fire are from three families who lived in the pre-fab wood and corrugated iron houses that were gutted by the flames.

Bacalhau said that the council works department will start to clear away the houses which he considers are "unrecoverable."

People in Britain are turning to coffee as their brew of choice.

Sales of tea dropped by 6% this year, after having fallen by 3% last year.

Inflation in the eurozone was up by 0.9% in November. In October it had been 0.7%.

In November of last year, inflation was running at 2.2% on average in the region.

The Secretary of State for Transport, Sérgio Monteiro, said today that the government is "creating the conditions" for the privatisation of TAP and will proceed "as soon as possible, perhaps in the first quarter of 2014.”

Monteiro said the government will only go ahead “when the conditions are right from the point of view of competitiveness in the market.”

The President of the Spanish Government, Mariano Rajoy, today expressed his optimism about recent Portuguese economic data, hailing the successes achieved by the coalition Government.

"I have followed closely the recent economic data from your country and the trend is positive," said Rajoy in an informal chat with press at his official residence Moncloa Palace, during a Christmas get together.

The general secretary of the Socialist Party has accused the prime minister of hiding information from the Portuguese electorate.

In response, the vice president of the parliamentary group of the ruling Social Democrats, Teresa Leal Coelho, said today that there is no bargaining going on, whether hidden or not hidden, over the terms under which the country will exit the bailout programme in June.

New research has shown that more than two million foreign purchasers now own property in the UK.

The figures, which come from an analysis of HMRC data, show the increase in overseas landlords has been 39% in the last five years.