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General news and current affairs from across Portugal.

A Gira bike-share station on the Lisbon waterfront at Cais do Sodre, with green and white bicycles in the docks and a person taking one out.

EMEL Replaced the Gira App on Tuesday, and the 300 Euro Hold on a Lisbon Day Pass Goes With It

Passes, balances and logins carry across automatically, and trips stay free to 45 minutes. What goes is the day-pass deposit, the points scheme and the shared wallet with the parking app. The single merged EMEL app is stuck at the Administrative Court.

The Portugal Brief 16 Sep 2026

The white facade of Aveiro railway station, decorated with blue and white azulejo panels, with the Portuguese flag flying against a clear blue sky.

Ground Breaks on Portugal's First High-Speed Rail Section at the End of September, While the Concession Company's Own Site Says the Environmental Check Is Still Open

AVAN Norte's operations chief told about 150 people in Aveiro that bridge site compounds go up this month and excavation starts in October. The company's own website still describes the Porto to Oiã line as being in environmental conformity verification, and 500 parcels are affected.

The Portugal Brief 16 Sep 2026

The shopfront of a working high-street pharmacy in Viseu, with the green pharmacy cross lit above the pavement and two people standing outside.

Patients Paid 571 Million Euros at Portuguese Pharmacy Counters in Seven Months, While the State's Share Climbed Four Times Faster

INFARMED's July report puts patient spending at 571.6 million euros, up 2.1 percent, and the SNS share at 1,179.3 million, up 8.3 percent. The average co-payment per pack actually fell two cents. What rose was volume, and one diabetes class accounts for a third of the increase.

The Portugal Brief 15 Sep 2026

An electricity transmission pylon carrying high-voltage lines across eucalyptus woodland at Rio Maior in central Portugal, under a clear sky.

The Regulated Electricity Tariff Rises 2.7 Percent on 1 October, Turning This Year's Promised 1 Percent Increase Into 1.7

ERSE has moved the energy component of the regulated tariff by half a cent a kilowatt hour, and says the reason is the war between Iran and the United States working through gas prices into electricity. It reaches 779,000 clients directly, and the free market buys in the same wholesale market.

The Portugal Brief 15 Sep 2026

A woman and a child at a wall-mounted Multibanco cash machine set in a stone facade on a Lisbon street, the child standing on the ledge to reach the screen.

A Portuguese Fintech Is Putting Spain's Bizum on Local Tills, With 31.5 Million Spanish Users on the Other Side

Eupago says Portuguese merchants can now be paid through Spain's default mobile payment scheme, and is targeting 5,000 shops and 180 million euros a year within three years. You still cannot get a Bizum account if you bank in Portugal.

The Portugal Brief 15 Sep 2026

The neoclassical facade of the Pacos do Concelho, Lisbon's city hall, with the Portuguese national flag flying from the flagpole above its dome against a clear blue sky.

The Right Rewrote the Flags Decree Before Wednesday's Vote, and the PSD Version Goes Further Than the CDS One

Antonio Jose Seguro sent the decree back in June without signing it. On Tuesday the CDS deleted the article banning ideological and associative flags, and the PSD tabled a separate text that keeps the ban and widens what counts as permitted.

The Portugal Brief 15 Sep 2026

The curved glass and steel facade of the Berlaymont building in Brussels, headquarters of the European Commission, with three European Union flags flying in front of it under a pale sky.

A Non-EU Degree Takes Fourteen Months to Get Recognised in Europe, and Brussels Proposed on Tuesday to Cut That to Four

The Commission's Fair Labour Mobility package is five legislative proposals. The one that will be felt hardest in Portugal sets common standards for recognising a qualification earned outside the Union, where the current average wait is 14 months.

The Portugal Brief 15 Sep 2026

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