Lisbon Council has decided that tourists should pay more for Council services, such as cleaning and transport, and has decided to increase its ‘tourist tax’ by 100%.
The tax will go up on January 1st, 2019, from €1 to €2-a-night, but capped at seven nights, “to strengthen urban cleaning and transportation in areas with greater tourism pressure,” the Council has announced.
Formerly the second largest shareholder in energy company, EDP, the US-based Capital Group has jettisoned its remaining holding.
On October 1, the Capital Group, announced to the stock market regulator that it was reducing its position in EDP to less than 3%. (HERE). Two weeks later, the Americans informed the regulator that they were selling out.
In a move that has anti-oil activists reaching for the bubbly, the Galp-ENI oil consortium has stated that it is unable to start drilling for oil off Aljezur this year.
The letter sent to the ENMC* says that "a delay is inevitable," and was copied to the Ministry of the Sea, the DGRM** and the Directorate-General for Energy.
The government executive has approved next year’s State Budget proposal at the end of a Saturday meeting that lasted 11 hours.
The agreed document will be delivered to parliament on Monday for discussion.
Prime Minister António Costa has taken advantage of the gap created by the resignation of the Minister of Defence by having a few changes in his executive.
The current Assistant Secretary of State for Administrative Modernisation, Graça Fonseca, will serve as Minister of Culture, replacing Luís Filipe Castro Mendes.
The iconic Fábrica do Inglês and cork museum in Silves and the garden area within its walls, is no longer heading for ‘monument of public interest’ status.
The Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage has determined that, "the procedure to classify the buildings as a public interest monument has been terminated."
Leslie has struck Portugal with a ferocity seldom experienced. The National Civil Protection Authority confirmed on Sunday morning that "the greatest dangers have passed," but only after a night of high winds, power failures, injuries, uprooted trees, property damage and flooding.
The hurricane lost power as it made its way to the mainland yesterday evening but was classified as a sub-tropical storm system, still packing power as it barrelled into the centre and north of the country leaving widespread damage but no reported deaths.*
Portugal’s Civil Protection Authority and the IPMA weather service have warned of two storms that simultaneously could hit the Portuguese mainland late this weekend. Forecasts are that parts of Portugal will experience near hurricane-force winds and western Spain can expect tropical storm-force winds.
If Leslie, whether as a hurricane or a tropical storm, continues on its current course and fails to veer to the east as some models predict, it will hit Portugal’s central and northwest coast on Sunday and will be "the worst weather since 1842," according to national media.
