Weekly Digest — February 22 to March 01, 2026

The week's most important Portugal stories, curated from our daily coverage.

This week in Portugal: the stories that mattered most, from politics and the economy to housing, health, and culture. If you missed anything, start here.

Portugal Must Triple Housing Construction to Close 300,000-Home Deficit

Portugal faces a structural housing deficit of approximately 300,000 homes, accumulated over the past decade, and the country will need to triple its annual production from around 20,000 to at least...

Montenegro Opens Door to Budget Deficits to Fund Portugal's Storm Recovery Plan

Prime Minister Luis Montenegro has acknowledged that financing the country's ambitious post-storm recovery programme may require running budget deficits and increasing public debt -- a significant...

Housing Supply Drops 13% as Portugal's Property Crisis Deepens

The number of homes available for sale in Portugal fell by 13 per cent in the final quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to data from idealista, the leading real estate...

Portugal Unveils PTRR: A Decade-Long Plan to Rebuild After the Storms

The Portuguese government has taken its most significant step yet in the aftermath of the devastating triple-storm sequence that ravaged the country earlier this year. On 21 February, the Council of...

Washington Wants Portugal to Buy F-35s and Close a $3.8 Billion Trade Gap

The United States ambassador to Portugal, John Arrigo, has made Washington's wishlist explicit: Portugal should buy American F-35 fighter jets, ramp up defence spending to five percent of GDP by...

Portugal's New Recovery Plan Could Push the Country Back Into Deficit

Portugal's government approved its ambitious new recovery programme last Friday -- the PTRR, or Portugal Transformacao, Recuperacao e Resiliencia -- but the plan arrived without a price tag, without...

Portugal Has EU's Second-Highest Housing Price Surge -- and Sixth-Lowest Purchasing Power

A sweeping new comparative study from Pordata, released on Monday, paints a stark picture of Portugal's position within the European Union: the country has experienced the second-largest increase in...

Washington Pushes Lisbon to Buy F-35 Fighter Jets as NATO Spending Debate Heats Up

The United States ambassador to Portugal, John Arrigo, has publicly urged Lisbon to replace its ageing fleet of F-16 fighter jets with Lockheed Martin's fifth-generation F-35 stealth aircraft, in a...

Thousands Expected on Streets Tomorrow as Unions Rally Against Labour Code Overhaul

Portugal's largest trade union federation, the CGTP, is mobilising for mass demonstrations in Lisbon and Porto on Saturday, March 1, in what organisers describe as the most significant labour protest...

Mortgage Lending Surges to 20-Year High as Portugal's Housing Boom Accelerates

Mortgage lending in Portugal grew at its fastest annual rate in two decades in January, new data from the Bank of Portugal revealed on Thursday, underscoring the intensity of demand in a housing...

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