Portugal - retirement: Expats are moving to Portugal, taking gentrification with them - by Jaweed Kaleem

Jamie Dixon landed in this hilly seaside town nine months ago, ditching her luxury trailer in Malibu for a two-floor rooftop apartment that’s twice the size for a fraction of the rent.

Her escape from her native California came amid growing costs of living, encroaching wildfires and a waning sense of safety after the burglary of a neighbor’s home. The fitness-trainer-turned-startup-worker decided it was time to reinvent herself in a foreign land, but like many American expats she didn’t want to feel too far from home.

In this wealthy enclave about 15 miles from the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, she found her slice of California on the west coast of Europe: ocean breezes, mountain views, hot spring days on palm-tree-lined promenades, and the glow of sunsets that seep into the night.

Read more at: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-05-12/california-expats-portugal-relocation-lisbon

Portugal's president calls a snap election on Jan. 30 after government lost vote on 2022 budget

Portugal's president dissolved parliament on Thursday evening and announced that the country will head to the polls for snap elections on January 30.

The country was plunged into a political crisis last week when MPs rejected the 2022 state budget proposed by Prime Minister António Costa.

The decision brought an end to the minority Socialist (PS) government alliance, which had ruled Portugal since 2015.

Read more at: Portugal's president calls a snap election on Jan. 30 after government lost vote on 2022 budget | Euronews

EU -Vaccines - Oxford/AstraZeneca: Spain joins France, Germany and Italy in pausing Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine

France, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Cyprus announced they will stop administering the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine pending an assessment by the EU’s medicine regulator. Spain said it will stop using the AZ vaccine for at least two weeks.

The benefits of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing Covid outweigh the risks of side effects, the European Medicines Agency said in a statement. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said there is no proven link to blood clots and that people should not panic.

Read more at: Spain joins France, Germany and Italy in pausing Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine – as it happened | World news | The Guardian

EU Coronavirus Spike: Portugal and Spain under pressure with huge Covid spike - by Elena Sánchez Nicolás

Portugal and Spain are struggling to control a massive surge in new coronavirus cases, amid fears over vaccines delays and fast-spreading Covid-19 mutations. The worsening epidemiological situation triggered the Portugese government to close the border with Spain for two weeks on Thursday (28 January).

Read more at: https://euobserver.com/coronavirus/150759

European Weather - Global Warming: Storms Elsa and Fabian leave nine dead across southern Europe

The death toll from fierce back-to-back storms pummeling Spain, Portugal and France has risen to nine as the region reels from more powerful winds and flooding.

The death of a fisherman in Catalonia, who was swept away by strong waves in the Mediterranean, brought the number killed up to nine since Storm Elsa whipped across from Wednesday to Friday. Seven of the deaths have been in Spain and two in Portugal.

Read more at: Storms Elsa and Fabian leave nine dead across southern Europe | News | DW | 22.12.2019

Portugal: Socialists tipped to win in upcoming general elections

Portugal heads to the polls with Socialists tipped to win,

Read more at:
https://p.dw.com/p/3Qmut

EU: Portugal's FM to become next Eurogroup president

The Eurogroup meeting on Monday elected Portuguese finance minister Mario Centeno as president of the Eurogroup.

The new president will take office as of Jan 13, 2018 and will serve a two and a half year term.

He is the first minister from a southern eurozone economy to hold the elected role and first Eurogroup meeting under the presidency of Mario Centeno will take place on Jan 22, 2018.

Mario Centeno has been the finance minister of Portugal since November 2015.

Read more: Portugal's FM to become next Eurogroup president - World - Chinadaily.com.cn

EU - Portugal: United socialists & democrats commit to a progressive future for Europe

Progressive activists, party members and political leaders discuss their experiences at the PES Council in Lisbon, and our shared strategy to change Europe for the better. and more progressive Europe.

Read more and view video: United socialists & democrats commit to a progressive future for Europe – POLITICO

Eurovision song contest 2017: The winner Portuguese Salvador Sobral - Amar Pelos Dois (Portugal)

From Portugal Euro Song Contest winner Amar Pelos Dois

Watched by more than 200 million people around the world Salvador Sobral - Amar Pelos Dois (Portugal) Eurovision 2017 - (Official Music Video)

It  took 53 years for Portugal to win the Eurovision Song Contest, and few could have predicted that it would be with an act as stripped-down and melancholic as this.

Maybe this performance by the Portuguese artist Salvador Sobral highlights the difference in European taste, when it comes to  popular music, in contrast to today's US hip-hop music culture.

Among the glossy trappings of 2017 club-tinged pop that were adopted by other favorites, Italy’s Francesco Gabbani and Bulgaria’s Justin Bieber 2.0 Kristian Kostov, Amar Pelos Dois cast a distinctly vintage shadow over the competition. 

While Sobral may have competed on the Portuguese version of Pop Idol seven years ago, he has made his name since by performing on smaller stages. And Amar Pelos Dois mined this; it could have been emerging from the doorway of a dimly lit bar in Lisbon’s Bairro Alto, not hushing the thousands of flag-bearers filling an arena in Ukraine.

EU-Digest

EU Medicines Oversight Body: Spain offers to host EU medicines agency after Brexit - by Ciaran Giles

Competition is heating up among European Union countries hoping to reap some of the benefits of Britain's exit from the EU, with Spain joining the list of nations bidding to host the bloc's medicines oversight body.

Health Minister Dolors Montserrat told a meeting of business representatives and journalists Thursday that Spain believes the Mediterranean port city of Barcelona is the ideal place to house the headquarters of the European Medicines Agency when it relocates from London.

Barcelona has offered its multicolored, aluminum-and-glass Agbar skyscraper as the headquarters. The city was runner-up when London was chosen as EMA headquarters in 1992.

The Netherlands and Portugal are also among several countries presenting bids for the lucrative oversight body. The Portuguese government said Thursday it would propose the capital, Lisbon, which is already home of the EU drug agency and the EU maritime safety agency.

The medicines agency, employing about 900 people, is one of the biggest EU institutions with an annual budget of more than 300 million euros ($325 million).

The EU is also expected to relocate the European Banking Authority as part of Brexit. It isn't known when the bloc will decide on where each body's new headquarters will be.

The EMA evaluates, supervises and monitors medicines developed for use in the EU and coordinates with around 1,600 companies.

Read more: Spain offers to host EU medicines agency after Brexit - ABC News

Tourism: Travel trends for 2017: City - Sand - Sea

Dutch Beach: sometimes the beach is closer than you think

Where to go on holiday in 2017? To help potential customers decide, the travel companies have already got their catalogues out. And most agree that safety will again be a top priority among holiday-makers in 2017.

The facts and figures of the past months give the tourism industry cause for optimism: the demand for holiday offerings continues unabated - in spite of the lingering threat of terrorism. The UNWTO World Tourism barometer indicated an increase of 1.6 percent in overnight stays within Europe for the turbulent year 2016. So European tourism is still growing, even if no longer as rapidly as in previous years. And safety still ranks as the top selling point.

Spain and Portugal were last year’s most popular destinations and look set to top the list for 2017, as well. Travel companies are expanding their hotel capacities wherever they can.  Tui, the world’s largest tour operator, has acquired a good 20 percent more hotels on the Canary Islands alone. FTI has taken on 75 new hotels, and Alltours a full 100. But the beach capacity remains the same. Will vacationers find a spot to spread their towels on such overcrowded stretches of sand? In any case, they’ll have to splash out more cash for their summer vacation in Spain than in previous years. Prices are going up, as well.

Turkey registered 33-percent fewer tourists in 2016. Whether the sector has any real chance exists to recover from such a steep drop remains to be seen. The tour operators haven’t started cutting hotel capacity just yet, but they’ve slashed the prices: Tui by five percent, Thomas Cook and Neckermann by eight percent. The hotels offer the same high quality for less money. But will such a bargain be enough to counter holiday-makers’ fears in 2017? 
 
Read more: Travel trends for 2017: City - Sand - Sea | DW Travel | DW.COM | 06.01.2017

European Football: Portugal 1-0 France: Euro 2016 final – as it happened

In the end, Cristiano Ronaldo had his hands on the trophy even if it was not the way the ultimate showman had intended. Portugal, the team that finished third in their group, had found a way even on a night when their greatest footballer was taken off on a stretcher. The players of France were on their knees and suddenly it was a sunrise of a smile on Ronaldo’s face, in stark contrast to the devastation that had been seen earlier in the night.

Has any player been through as many contrasting emotions in the space of a major final? Ronaldo was in tears when he left the pitch with his damaged knee in the first half. He had tried desperately to carry on and when he finally accepted it was futile it felt like a grievous setback to Portugal’s hopes of denying France the outcome that would have meant so much in this city. Ronaldo looked broken. The final was deprived of its main attraction and at that stage it was tempting to wonder whether his team-mates truly believed they could cope.

Portugal subsequently played like a team affronted by the suggestion they might be overly reliant on one man. They gave everything to keep out France during the long passages when the host nation put them under pressure.

Their sense of adventure grew as the game wore on and, ultimately, Éder’s decisive goal in the second period of extra time won a test of endurance. Their run of 10 successive defeats to France, stretching back to 1978, was over and Ronaldo, his leg heavily strapped, climbed the steps to collect the silverware – an excruciating low, an exhilarating high and a night like few others.

Portugal can duly reflect on their greatest ever victory, made all the more remarkable by the fact they could not beat Iceland, Hungary or Austria in the group stages. Their safety-first tactics will not appeal to everyone but nobody could dispute their competitive courage and mental toughness after the jarring challenge that meant their three-times Ballon d’Or winner was unable to influence the game in the way he would have imagined. Read more: Portugal 1-0 France: Euro 2016 final – as it happened | Football | 

Read more: The Guardian

EU Sanctions Controversy: Commission Considering Fines To Punish Spain And Portugal Budget Deficits - by Jess McHugh

he European Union's administrative arm will begin procedures to sanction Spain and Portugal for failing to do enough to cut their budget deficits, EurActiv reported Wednesday. Both countries were hit especially hard by the 2008 economic crisis and have struggled to recover in the nearly eight years since.

A continentwide economic crisis in 2008 sunk the euro and sent national deficits and unemployment soaring. Spain and Portugal — among other nations, such as Greece and Ireland — exchanged European cash bailouts for austerity measures like tax hikes and budget slashing.

While Spain and Portugal have exited the bailout program, high deficits persist. Sanctions could be issued over the Stability and Growth Pact of the European Commission, created two decades ago, which stipulates each member state must keep government budget gaps below 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). That figure was 5.1 percent in Spain and around 4.4 percent in Portugal by the end of 2015.

Spain has done its best to reduce its deficit in a short period of time and should not be penalized for some shortcomings, according to its prime minister. “Just four, five years ago, we were a big problem. You need to look at how Spain was then and how we’re leading growth now,” Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said earlier this month, Bloomberg reported. “No one can call into question Spain’s fiscal efforts.”

The fine could be as high as 0.02 percent of each nation's GDP, or billions of euros in the case of Spain and in the hundreds of millions in Portugal, but sources close to the case said that sum will likely be much lower. The move is more symbolic, as Spain and Portugal would be the first member states to be punished by the Stability and Growth Pact despite other countries — including France and Germany — having violated it.

"There is a chance that the Commission could recommend sanctions and at the same time recommend that they are reduced to zero percent," one official told Reuters.

Read more: EU Sanctions Controversy: Commission Considering Fines To Punish Spain And Portugal Budget Deficits

Portugal - De Sousa wins Portuguese presidential election outright

 Centre-right candidate Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa won Portugal’s presidential election on Sunday, an outcome that should help maintain political balance after a dramatic swing to the left in October’s parliamentary ballot.

In his victory speech, Social Democrat Rebelo de Sousa, 67, said he will work to promote consensus and repair divisions created in the aftermath of the previous election when the left ousted a centre-right administration that imposed tough austerity under an international bailout in 2011-14.

Portugal’s president is a largely ceremonial figure but he plays an important role at times of political uncertainty - as have gripped the country since last October’s inconclusive parliamentary election. He has the power to dissolve parliament and fire the prime minister.

Portugal is likely to need all consensus possible as a shaky government of moderate centre-left Socialists dependent on far-left parties for support in parliament tries to reconcile its election pledges to end economic austerity with budget deficit cuts promised to the European Union.

“This election ends a very long election process... that unnerved the country and divided a society already hurt by years of crisis. It is time to turn the page and detraumatise, start an economic, social and political pacifiication,” Rebelo de Sousa said at the Lisbon University’s Law Faculty where he teaches.

“We have to align social justice with economic growth and financial stability, without compromising the financial solidity for which so many Portuguese sacrificed so much for years,” he said referring to Portugal’s budget consolidation drive of the past few years that helped it out of an acute debt crisis.

With nearly all votes counted, preliminary results showed Rebelo de Sousa, a former journalist and one-time leader of the centre-right Social Democrats, winning 52 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff.

Read more: Europe - De Sousa wins Portuguese presidential election outright - France 24

Portugal: Start-up city: why Lisbon’s is luring entrepreneurs

Lisbon has much to offer the multitudes of tourists who visit every year but it’s now also proving attractive to entrepreneurs. Under a special programme the city has created excellent conditions for fostering SMEs and the results so far are impressive.

“In two and a half years, we have installed more than 70 new businesses in Lisbon and have already managed to create more than a 160 new jobs,” says Lisbon City Council Project Manager Maribel Rodrigues Ferreira.

By the majestic walls of Saint Jorge castle in the heart of Lisbon we meet the man behind one of the programme’s success stories .

From his Tuk-Tuk Tiago Ribeiro sells beautifully packaged speciality canned Portuguese fish products. He was the first entrepreneur to have been helped by the Lisbon scheme, which immediately saw the appeal of his his concept.


Read more: Start-up city: why Lisbon’s is luring entrepreneurs | euronews, business planet

Europe - EU seeks unity after Greece's Tsipras blasts Spain, Portugal for 'bailout blackmail'

The EU said Monday it is trying to mediate in a simmering row between Greece and its eurozone partners Spain and Portugal after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accused them of undermining debt talks with Brussels.

Madrid and Lisbon lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission over the comments by Tsipras, who likened pressure from Spain and Portugal during negotiations over a four-month bailout extension to blackmail.

Germany has also denounced the comments by Tsipras, whose anti-austerity Syria party stormed to victory in elections in January on the back of promises to end austerity and renegotiate its bailout.

"We are speaking to all actors involved in order to ensure there is unity among all EU states and especially all EU states of the eurozone," Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva told a daily briefing.

Read more: Europe - EU seeks unity after Greece's Tsipras blasts Spain, Portugal for 'bailout blackmail' - France 24

Portugal: Buoyed by Exports, Portugal Chooses Clean Exit From Bailout - by Raphael Minder

Portugal on Sunday announced its exit from a three-year bailout program that has forced deep spending cuts and set off mass protests — but has also helped the country clean up its public finances and return to the bond markets after halving its budget deficit.

Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said that Portugal had built up sufficient financial reserves to end the program on schedule and without requesting any additional line of credit from its European counterparts. Such a line of credit would have acted as a safety net if the country again struggled to meet its debt financing obligations.

The decision to fully exit the program comes after Portugal’s international lenders — the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank — on Friday issued a positive assessment of the country’s progress. Portugal, which was particularly scarred by the European debt crisis, received a bailout of 78 billion euros, or about $108 billion, three years ago.

“With the recovery of our autonomy, Portugal will be on an equal footing with the other member states” of the European Union, Mr. Passos Coelho said in a televised address on Sunday evening, flanked by his ministers.

Read more: Buoyed by Exports, Portugal Chooses Clean Exit From Bailout - NYTimes.com

European Elections: Upstart Portuguese party wants more Europe

Rui Tavares sits at a small podium as he faces the audience in the crowded library in Lisbon. He tells them about "Ulysses". But the thin man with the round glasses is no literary critic, and he's not here to talk about Homer or James Joyce. He's talking about the future of Europe.

"Ulysses" is the name the 41-year-old has given to an ambitious economic policy project with which aims to redefine the roles of southern European countries like Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain in the EU.

"Above all, we want to achieve one thing. We no longer want the countries in the south of Europe to be called PIGS."

Tavares says solving the sovereign debt crisis must no longer be a national task. Instead, the crisis has to be solved by Europe as a whole.

He wants the EU to set up its own,independent financial institution similar to the International Monetary Fund and controlled by the European Parliament. The problems in the south of Europe could be solved with an economic stimulus package, like the Marshall plan set up after World War Two, Tavares says.

He's not short of bigideas for Europe. Tavares has been an independent member of the European Parliament since 2009. Almost three years ago, he decided to join the group of the Greens/EFA.. Tavares is again contesting a seat in the upcoming European elections in late May, with the party he has founded in Portugal
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"The LIVRE party is based on four pillars: freedom, being leftist in the classic sense - that means equality and social justice - environmental protection and Europe," the party founder explains.

Read more Upstart Portuguese party wants more Europe | Europe | DW.DE | 24.04.2014

Eurozone: Portugal the surprise hero of eurozone growth as exports and tourism prosper - Peter Wise

Tearful farewells have become a common sight at Lisbon’s Portela airport.

Three years of punishing austerity and deep recession have triggered an exodus where an estimated 200 young graduates and other emigrants leave each day. But nearby, the airport’s busy cargo terminals andbustling shopping malls reveal less familiar aspect of the painful economic adjustment Portugal is making as part of a €78bn international bailout agreement: record levels of export growth and tourism have helped make the country the surprise

Year-on-year growth of 1.6 per cent in the final quarter of 2013 outstripped every other eurozone member, including Germany, while quarterly growth of 0.5 per cent, topped only by the Netherlands, shattered economists’ forecasts of only a 0.1 per cent increase.

Read more: Portugal the surprise hero of eurozone growth as exports and tourism prosper - FT.com

EU - Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal Increase Competitiveness in Latest Economic Indicators - by Michael Klimes

Some of Europe's largest economies have seen a decrease in their labour costs during the second quarter, according to figures released by the European Central Bank.

The harmonised competitiveness indicators, which look at the price and cost competitiveness of eurozone countries, revealed that Italy, Spain and Portugal have made progress in becoming more competitive.

In the second quarter of 2013 Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Slovakia saw their labour costs decrease and competitiveness increase from the first quarter of 2013.

Spain saw a real improvement in its score in the first quarter, which previously stood at 2.6% but improved to -0.4% in the second quarter.

Meanwhile Italy's score shifted from 1.9% in the first quarter to -1.2% in the second, and France saw a percentage improvement from 1.4% to -0.5%.

Slovakia also became stronger with a significant move from 1.6% to -1.4% in the second quarter across the two quarters

Read more: Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal Increase Competitiveness in Latest Economic Indicators - IBTimes UK