The average cost of labour per hour across the 28 member countries of the European Union was estimated to be €24.60 in 2014, rising to €29.20 among the 18 nation-eurozone.

The range stretches from €40.3 in Denmark to €3.80 in Bulgaria.

James Jackson is banned from voting in UK parliamentary elections but is allowed to stand as a MP, which is exactly what this Briton is going to do.

Jackson lives in France and is to contest the Uxbridge & South Ruislip seat which also is being contested by Boris Johnson, the current Mayor of London.

The authority said “corrupt high–level managers and weak anti–money-laundering controls have made BPA (Banca Privada d’Andorra) an easy vehicle for third–party money-launderers”.

It claimed that three senior managers accepted bribes to help criminals in Russia, Venezuela and China to funnel money through the Andorran system.

Financially affected Grupo Espírito Santo bondholders have managed at last to meet some of the directors of Novo Banco but left with no deal, just an agreement to keep talking.

The group of customers who feel that BES staff misled them into investing in Grupo Espírito Santo company bonds are owed over €500 million and have been seeking recompense from Novo Banco, the new entity created to take over the nice parts of BES when it went under last August.

Fish have returned to the Great Barrier Reef in numbers not seen since Europeans settled in Australia.

The result stems from a ban on fishing which was imposed at first on a limited section of the world-famous reef. It was expanded in 2004 to cover 33% of the marine park.

Socialist leader António Costa said this weekend that Portugal would have to look back to 1966, almost 50 years ago, to find an equal number of emigrants as left the country in 2013.

The general secretary of the PS today called for Europe-wide anti-migration measures from the periphery countries to the centre of Europe, citing recent reports about the German need for 500,000 foreign workers, and wants a way of keeping qualified young people in Portugal.

The situation at printers Litográfica do Sul in Vila Real de Santo António has worsened with workes told not to come in next week until at least Thursday when they will be told if they have jobs or not.

The workforce has not been paid for March and the union representative has urged staff to turn up on Monday in case management start to shift machinery from the premises.

A Silves GNR patrol managed eventually to halt two men fleeing the scene of the burglary in a stolen car.

The men, aged 26 and 31, have been charged with pinching the get-away car and of theft from commercial property in Silves.