General Daily Briefing — Wednesday, 6 May 2026

Government Announces 6.2% Salary Increase for Roughly 111,000 Private-Sector Workers — Retroactive to March, Meal Subsidy Climbs €0.15 to €6.15 a Day

A round of collective-bargaining settlements lands its biggest single update of the year: roughly 111,000 private-sector administrative workers will receive a 6.2% nominal salary increase, effective March 2026 with retroactive payment, alongside a €0.15 daily uplift in the meal subsidy taking the per-day floor to €6.15. Cash translation: roughly €50 to €87 per month in nominal increase, plus a two-month catch-up in the May or June pay slip. The 6.2% sits well above the Bank of Portugal's 2.1% CPI projection for 2026 and the government's 4.6% reference rate for nominal salary valuation, implying a real-wage gain of roughly 4 percentage points for the workers covered. Read the full story →

Anacom Returns to Profitability with €38 Million Net Result for 2025 — Telecom Regulator Bounces Back Despite an 18% Revenue Drop and a €112 Million Refund Programme to Operators

The Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações, under President Sandra Maximiano, posted a €38 million net result for 2025 — a clean return to profitability after the €10.75 million 2023 trough and the provisions cycle that had cut headline profit 78% versus 2022's record near-€50 million. The 18% revenue drop reflects the deliberate downsizing of the operator-fee base after the multi-year refund programme that has already returned approximately €112 million to telecom operators following administrative-court rulings. Cumulative 2025-2027 profit guidance: €79.4 million. The 2025 net result implies a State transfer in the €19-23 million range at the next dividend settlement. Read the full story →

Mota-Engil Opens a €50 Million Five-Year Sustainability-Linked Retail Bond at 4.60% Gross — Subscription Window Runs 6 to 19 May, With a Swap Lane for the 4.15% 2021/2026 Holders

The Mota-Engil Group, Portugal's biggest international construction platform, opened a new sustainability-linked retail bond this morning: €50 million base size, five-year tenor (2026-2031), 4.60% gross annual coupon, subscription window 6 May to 19 May. Banco Finantia leads, with retail distribution through Novobanco, ABANCA and the BNI/BIG networks. A swap lane is open to holders of the maturing €75 million 4.15% 2021/2026 series. Headline spread is roughly 175 basis points over the on-the-run five-year OT, with a step-up clause if the issuer misses pre-agreed sustainability KPIs. Implied real yield to maturity at the projected CPI track is in the 2.4-2.5% range — competitive with the best Portuguese deposit rates and ahead of the equivalent-tenor sovereign. Read the full story →

Seven EU Capitals Walk From €74 Billion in Recovery and Resilience Loans — Spain Renounces €60 Billion, Portugal Trims €311 Million as Brussels Locks the 31 May 2026 Reprogramming Deadline

The NextGenerationEU recovery fund is losing more than 11% of its loan firepower as seven member states have now formally renounced parts of their loan envelopes — a cumulative €73.7 billion. Spain alone gives up €60 billion; Portugal trims €311 million, taking its working envelope from €22.2 billion to €21.9 billion and removing the Lisbon Metro red-line expansion and Hospital de Todos os Santos from the PRR list. Both projects continue under separate national funding mechanisms but are no longer caught by the 2026 deadline. The European Commission has locked 31 May 2026 as the final cut-off date for any further reprogramming; the disbursement window itself ends in July 2026. Read the full story →

Caixa Geral de Depósitos Studies Listing Mozambique's BCI on the BVM — Paulo Macedo Confirms IPO Working Hypothesis Without Walking Away From the Cap Table

Caixa Geral de Depósitos is formally studying a Bolsa de Valores de Moçambique listing of its Mozambican subsidiary Banco Comercial e de Investimentos (BCI) — the largest bank in the country — without exiting the cap table itself. CEO Paulo Macedo confirmed the working hypothesis to the Mozambican President in Maputo on Tuesday. BCI's share capital stands at 10 billion meticais (€138 million) with the cap table dominated by Caixa Participações (51%), BPI (35.67%) and CGD direct (10.51%). At a conservative 1.0x book valuation, a BCI listing would imply market capitalisation of €800 million-€1 billion — more than doubling the BVM's free float overnight. BPI's 35.67% block is the operative working float candidate; BPI Chairman João Pedro Oliveira e Costa told parliament in February that Mozambican and Angolan participations 'are not strategic'. Read the full story →

Government Concedes Only 16% of Its 84 Brussels-Pledged Reforms Are Complete — 13 Done, 8 Delayed and the Rest 'In Progress' as the European Semester Evaluation Approaches in June

The Portuguese government's annual progress report to the European Commission lands an uncomfortable headline: of the 84 reform measures pledged under the European Semester country-specific recommendations cycle, only 13 are formally complete — a 16% completion rate. A further eight are flagged as delayed, with the remaining 60-plus described as 'in progress'. The eight delayed files are the politically sensitive list: fossil-fuel-subsidy elimination, housing-rental-market reform, justice-system performance metrics, pension-system long-term sustainability, public-procurement digitalisation, healthcare-workforce architecture, skills-mismatch programmes, and the anti-money-laundering supervisory architecture. The Commission's evaluation lands in June 2026. Read the full story →