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The Portugal Brief

The Portugal Brief

Government

Miranda Sarmento Confirms a Special Tax on Energy Companies' Extraordinary Profits — Government Will Calibrate the 2022 Contribuição Solidária Temporária Template and Walk a Bill Into Parliament 'A Breve Trecho' as Hormuz Lifts Diesel Past €2/L

Finance Minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento confirmed on Tuesday a special tax on energy companies' extraordinary profits, calibrating the 2022 Contribuição Solidária Temporária template to the Hormuz fuel-price spike. Rate and revenue 'premature'; bill to Parliament 'a breve trecho'.

Government

MAI Books €36 Million for SIRESP With 33 Working-Group Recommendations and an 18-Month Timeline — Internal Administration's Luís Neves Pitches Energy Autonomy and Redundancies After the April 2025 Blackout and the Storm Kristin Centro Outage

MAI booked roughly €36 million on Tuesday to strengthen SIRESP, Portugal's emergency-communications backbone, with 33 working-group recommendations and an 18-month implementation timeline aimed at the energy and redundancy gaps exposed by the April 2025 blackout and Storm Kristin's Centro outage.

Agriculture

Portugal Recovers WOAH Avian-Flu-Free Country Status After 26-Foco H5N1 Window Closes — DGAV Confirms 4 May Reset on the December 2-26 2025 Outbreak Cycle, Bird Confinement Already Lifted in April

The Direção-Geral de Alimentação e Veterinária confirmed on 4 May 2026 that Portugal has recovered its status as a country free of highly pathogenic avian influenza, after the World Organisation for Animal Health validated the close-out of the 26-outbreak cycle that ran from 2 to 26 December 2025.

Technology

Nscale Books €695 Million for a Second 200MW Sines Building With 66,000 NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs for Microsoft — Late-2027 Deployment Builds on the 12,600 Blackwell Ultra Stack at Start Campus' 1.2GW Permitted Site

Nscale committed €695 million on Tuesday to expand its Sines Data Campus collaboration with Microsoft and Start Campus — €230 million in shared infrastructure and €465 million for a second 200MW building hosting 66,000+ NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 GPUs from late 2027.

TAP

TAP Books the Ex-CEO's €5.9 Million Indemnisation Claim Into the 2025 Accounts as a Civil Contingency — Civil Contingency Bucket Up From €28.5M to €34M, Auditor Disclosure With No Provision Set

TAP's 2025 accounts list Christine Ourmières-Widener's €5.9 million wrongful-dismissal claim as a civil contingency — recognised in disclosure, with no provision booked. The civil contingency line rises from €28.5M (2024) to €34M (2025), explicitly attributed to the former chief executive's case.