🇵🇹 Portugal news, in English, every morning. Free. Subscribe

The Portugal Brief

Home
Politics
Economy
Guides
About

Sign in Subscribe

news

Breaking news and developing stories from across Portugal.

The medieval castle of Leiria rising on a wooded hill above the city's dusk-lit central square, in the district worst hit by Storm Kristin

Six Months After Storm Kristin, Portugal Has Paid Out Billions but Its Hardest-Hit Towns Are Still Waiting to Rebuild

Half a year after Storm Kristin battered central Portugal on 28 January, insurers have settled 80 percent of housing claims and public aid tops €3.5 billion. Yet only a quarter of the €5.3 billion in damage was insured, businesses in Marinha Grande remain shut, and a labour shortage is stalling the

The Portugal Brief 28 Jul 2026

The curved Art Deco facade of the Escola Secundaria Jose Falcao in Coimbra, a Portuguese state secondary school, its name carved above the entrance under a clear blue summer sky

Portugal Weighs Delaying the Secondary School Year by a Week After a Troubled First All-Digital Exam Season

Education Minister Fernando Alexandre says pushing the start of the secondary school year back by a week is 'on the table', giving teachers time to recover after a marking season disrupted by Portugal's first all-digital national exams. A platform outage locked graders out of some 300,000 scripts an

The Portugal Brief 28 Jul 2026

A close-up of pink ten-euro banknotes overlaid with scattered ten-cent euro coins, the European Union flag and ECB signature visible on the notes

Ministers Push for a 2027 Minimum Wage Above the Agreed €970 as Economists Warn of a Squeeze on the Middle of the Pay Scale

Portugal's minimum wage is set to rise to €970 in 2027, but the Secretary of State for Labour wants more and unions are pressing for €1,000 to €1,050. Employers and economists urge caution, warning that lifting the floor too fast into a stagnant economy would squeeze the pay of workers just above it

The Portugal Brief 28 Jul 2026

The Palacio de Sao Bento in Lisbon, seat of the Portuguese Parliament, its neoclassical white facade at dusk with the Portuguese flag flying above the central pediment

Portugal Sends Brussels a Seventh and Final Recovery-Plan Revision, Nudging Some Targets Up and Others Down Inside a Frozen €21.9 Billion

Portugal has submitted what it calls the seventh and final revision of its €21.9 billion Recovery and Resilience Plan to Brussels, keeping the total unchanged while raising some project targets and trimming others. With 75 percent of milestones met and a 2026 spending deadline near, it is a race to

The Portugal Brief 28 Jul 2026

Black-and-white 1940 portrait of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul who issued visas to refugees fleeing Nazism, in a dark suit and tie

The Jesuit Refugee Service Calls On Portugal to Revive Suspended EU Resettlement Programmes as the 1951 Refugee Convention Turns 75

On the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Jesuit Refugee Service is urging Lisbon to reactivate the EU resettlement and relocation programmes Portugal suspended, citing administrative strain. Director André Costa Jorge invokes Aristides de Sousa Mendes and Portugal's self-image as

The Portugal Brief 28 Jul 2026

A Galp petrol station in the Algarve under a clear blue sky, with the orange Galp canopy and yellow Desconto discount banners by the forecourt

Galp Rejects Capped Fuel Margins as the Energy Minister Orders ERSE to Study Them

Environment and Energy Minister Maria da Graça Carvalho has asked the regulator ERSE to study capping the commercial margins fuel firms add at the pump. Galp's co-CEO calls the idea one that 'doesn't seem to make sense', even as the group's half-year profit jumped 44 percent to 812 million euros and

The Portugal Brief 28 Jul 2026

Iced doughnuts, cherry bakewell tarts, chocolate and chocolate-chip cookies arranged around the word SUGAR spelled out in white sugar on a wooden table

Almost 40 Percent of Portuguese Children Aged 5 to 14 Carry Excess Weight, and One in Eight Is Already Obese

A new INE survey finds that close to 40 percent of Portuguese children aged five to fourteen are overweight or obese, with one in eight — around 132,000 — already obese. Nearly 45 percent regularly eat fast food, ultra-processed products or sugary drinks, and rates run highest in the Azores, the Nor

The Portugal Brief 28 Jul 2026

Subscribe to The Portugal Brief

Don't miss out on the latest news. Sign up now to get access to the library of members-only articles.

Sign up
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service
Partner with Us
Editorial Standards

The Portugal Brief © 2026. Powered by Ghost

Operated by Thrifty Explorations LLC.

[email protected]