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The white frontage of a Portuguese state secondary school with a terracotta tiled roof, solar panels on the roof and a paved courtyard with clipped trees in front

Portugal's Mathematicians Want the National Tests to Count Again, After PISA Put Fifteen-Year-Olds Below Their 2003 Score

Four hundred and sixty points in mathematics, twelve down and below 2003. The society's answer is tests with consequences, credit hours for support, and textbook certification.

The Portugal Brief 14 Sep 2026

An aerial view of rows of solar panels spread across dry brown farmland in southern Portugal, with a village on the ridge in the distance

Lightsource bp Dropped Its 240 Million Euro Beira Solar Plant, and Shrank the Neighbouring One by 35 Percent

The assessors counted 479 cork and holm oaks and an Iberian imperial eagle. Reworking the plant to answer that, the promoter says, stopped adding up financially.

The Portugal Brief 14 Sep 2026

The arched stone entrance of Portugal's Constitutional Court in Lisbon, with the words Tribunal Constitucional carved into the lintel above the doorway

The Constitutional Court Holds the First Request in Portuguese History to Dissolve a Party for Extremism, and Has Not Yet Found Time to Decide It

A judge of the court set out the difficulty in public: is a Nazi salute enough, or billboards against an ethnic group? She also said the court's own rulings are sometimes simply ignored.

The Portugal Brief 14 Sep 2026

The plenary chamber of the Assembleia da Republica in Lisbon seen from above during a full sitting, with members at their curved wooden benches beneath the painted vault

Sixty of the 398 People Who Entered a Portuguese Cabinet Since 1976 Were Women, and Half of Them Arrived With a Doctorate

Women ministers are twice as likely as men to hold a doctorate, and the study reads that as a higher bar rather than a triumph. Most of them land in peripheral portfolios.

The Portugal Brief 14 Sep 2026

The neoclassical facade of the Palacio de Sao Bento in Lisbon under a grey sky, with the Portuguese flag flying above the pediment and the stone lion on the front steps

Portuguese Ministers Stay About 600 Days, and the Parties Now Recruit Specialists Without Giving Up the Nomination

A new study profiles every minister since 1976. Expertise has risen sharply, but the parties absorbed it rather than lost ground to it, and foreign affairs is still kept for the loyal.

The Portugal Brief 14 Sep 2026

A Portuguese state primary school seen from the street, the name EB1 Dr Catela Gomes on the boundary wall beside a glazed public noticeboard and a closed white gate.

Seguro Escolar in Portugal in 2026: A Practical Guide to What the State Pays When a Child Is Hurt at School, the Journey That Counts, and the Seven Exclusions

Every state-school pupil is covered by a statutory scheme with no insurer and no policy document. It pays for public treatment, travel and compensation worth up to 300 times the minimum wage, and it pays nothing at all if you sorted the problem out privately first.

The Portugal Brief 13 Sep 2026

Aerial view of Porto Covo on the Alentejo coast, its small harbour full of boats and the rocky Ilha do Pessegueiro lying offshore.

An Invasive Japanese Alga Now Covers the Sea Floor Off Sines Down to Twelve Metres, Ten Years After It Was First Logged in the Marina

Rugulopteryx okamurae runs from Melides to Azenha do Mar, worst at São Torpes and Ilha do Pessegueiro. It blocks light and oxygen, and the coralline algae, wracks and kelps under it die. It has been banned from the EU market since August 2022, which is the problem.

The Portugal Brief 13 Sep 2026

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