Meeting of the Socialist Party's national political committee at party headquarters in Lisbon, with an 'Avançamos todos' backdrop

Politics 24 October 2026

Why Portugal's 2027 budget is safe before the debate even starts

The Socialist Party (PS) confirmed on 21 October that it will abstain in the first-reading vote on the 2027 State Budget, debated on 27 and 28 October. With its 58 MPs out of the count, the governing AD's 91 seats are enough: even if every other party votes against, they total 81.

Portugal’s 2027 State Budget goes into its first-reading debate on 27 and 28 October with approval all but certain. On Wednesday 21 October the Socialist Party’s national political committee confirmed a “total consensus” behind José Luís Carneiro’s proposal to let the budget through by abstaining.

Party spokesman André Moz Caldas was careful to say the abstention is neither a blank cheque nor a move towards Luís Montenegro’s government. The argument is stability. Portugal has voted three times in the span of one normal parliament, and the PS reckons few people would understand another election halfway through this one.

The arithmetic

In the first-reading vote, what matters is whether more MPs vote for than against. Abstentions do not count either way.

On the seat split from the May 2025 election, the governing AD (PSD and CDS) has 91 MPs. If the PS’s 58 abstain, that leaves 81 seats elsewhere in the chamber: Chega 60, IL 9, Livre 6, PCP 3, BE 1, PAN 1 and JPP 1. Even if every one of them votes no, the result is 91 to 81.

So once the PS abstains, no other party’s vote changes the outcome. Chega has not announced its position, and IL has said a vote against is very likely. Livre and the PCP have both attacked the proposal. None of that is enough to sink it.

What is still open

The first reading is only the first gate. Next comes the committee stage, where the budget is amended line by line, and the final vote is set for 24 November. The PS says it will keep abstaining in that final vote barring something unexpected, and that it wants answers on whether every Recovery and Resilience Plan project continues and on the money to repair storm damage.

That is where the Socialists’ leverage counts, on a document that already had €4.8 billion committed before it even existed, between pensions, civil service pay and interest on the debt.

By Tomás Vasconcelos

Image: Partido Socialista

Politics 23 October 2026

Brazilians in Portugal vote again on Sunday, and they backed Lula when Brazil didn't

More than 134,000 Brazilian voters registered in Portugal can vote in Sunday's presidential runoff, from 8am to 5pm in Lisbon, Porto and Faro. In the first round they gave Lula 52.45% and Flávio Bolsonaro 38.57%, the reverse of the national result.

Brazilians living in Portugal go back to the polls on Sunday 25 October for the presidential runoff between Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro. They arrive with a first-round result that looks nothing like their country's. On 4 October, voters registered in Portugal gave Lula 52.45% (26,401 votes) and Flávio Bolsonaro 38.57% (19,412), according to the Superior Electoral Court's count. Back home it went the other way. With every section counted, Flávio…

Politics 27 September 2026

Pharmacies have 20 days to get ready for Portugal's new free-medicine rule

The decree changing how free prescriptions are costed for Portugal's poorest pensioners takes effect on 17 October, and it carries a guarantee for anyone the pharmacy fails to warn about the cheaper option.

The clock started on 18 August. Decree-Law 169/2026 says in its final article that it takes effect 60 days after publication, which lands on 17 October. From that date, it's the rule pharmacies apply at the counter. That's 20 days away. We explained how the free-medicine rule changes when the decree came out: recipients of the complemento solidário para idosos, Portugal's top-up for pensioners on the lowest incomes, still take their medicines without…

Politics 25 September 2026

Portugal tells the UN: enough of this "collective masochism" over oil prices

Addressing the UN General Assembly, the prime minister criticized how global oil prices are set, backed a two-state solution in the Middle East, and reaffirmed Portugal's full support for Ukraine.

Luís Montenegro took the podium at the UN General Assembly in New York and opened with something that hits every Portuguese wallet: the price of fuel. He called it a "senseless crisis" and asked the world to end "this collective masochism," a direct jab at the mechanism that sets oil prices globally, according to UN Portugal's account of the speech. His argument was that entire economies remain hostage to speculation and volatility in a market nobody…

Tugadaily bar chart of Storm Kristin calamity instruments published per month in 2026: 1 in January, 23 in February, 3 each in March, April, May and June, none in July or August, 1 in September

Politics 22 September 2026

Portugal's 37th Storm Kristin law was published on Tuesday

We counted the calamity legislation list the Government itself keeps on gov.pt: 37 instruments since 30 January, 24 of them in the first four weeks, none at all in July or August. The newest one rewrites the overtime rules for the people who answered the storm.

Storm Kristin crossed Portugal in the last week of January. The state of calamity lasted nineteen days. The legislation has not stopped. Decreto-Lei n.º 191/2026 appeared in the Diário da República on Tuesday, and we wanted to know where it sat in the queue. So we counted. The Government keeps a guide listing every piece of calamity legislation on gov.pt, updated as each one lands. We added up the entries on that page, one by one, with the date on each.…

Bar chart of the fixed monthly risk bonus for Portugal's PSP and GNR: 100 euros in 2023, 300 in 2024, 350 in 2025 and 400 in 2026

Politics 19 September 2026

If you check passports for Portugal, the government is offering you €160 a month

The proposal tabled on 17 September gives €160 a month in 2026, backdated to July, and €230 in 2027, but only to the PSP and GNR border units. Six of the seven PSP unions at the table were willing to negotiate. Two organisations are still holding protests over the 2024 deal.

Read that the government has offered Portuguese police another €160 a month and you will want the next line. The supplement tabled on 17 September is not for the PSP or the GNR as a whole. It is for two units: the PSP's national foreigners and borders unit, and the GNR's coastal and border control unit. The offer is €160 a month in 2026, backdated to July, rising to €230 in 2027. The interior ministry grounds it in how particular the job is: dedicated…

Bar chart of the Portuguese income tax cut by bracket: 0.3 points in the first, 0.5 in brackets two to five, 0.3 in the sixth and nothing in brackets seven to nine

Politics 18 September 2026

Portugal's fifth income tax cut still needs a vote before November payslips change

Rates fall by 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points across the first six brackets, at a cost of about 400 million euros and covering nearly three million households. The government approved the bill on Thursday; parliament has not voted on it.

Portugal's cabinet signed off a bill on Thursday that lowers IRS income tax rates across the first six brackets. The cut runs from 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points, costs roughly 400 million euros and, according to the government's own statement, reaches close to three million households. The word doing the heavy lifting there is bill. Tax rates are not changed in cabinet. They are changed by a law passed in the Assembleia da República, and that is where the…

Very high voltage lines and pylons on REN's electricity transmission grid in the late afternoon, against an orange sky

Politics 17 September 2026

The Portuguese state is back in REN with 13.7%, and parliament wants a rulebook for the next one

Parpública notified the market regulator of a qualified holding of 91,723,676 shares, completed on 7 September once the Court of Auditors signed off. The Socialists want statutory criteria for when the state may buy into a private company.

The deal is done. REN told the market that Parpública holds a qualified stake of 91,723,676 ordinary shares, representing 13.7% of its capital, putting the Portuguese state back on the share register twelve years after it left. The shares changed hands and the price was paid on 7 September. When we wrote about this in August the open question was procedural. The contract with Pontegadea had been signed on 14 August but hung on a condition, and we said the…

Bar chart of the maximum deadlines in Brazil's reciprocity decree: Camex 60 days, Gecex 60, public consultation 30 and the Camex Council 120

Politics 16 September 2026

How long can Brazil take to answer US tariffs? Its own decree allows 270 days

Brasília opened its first reciprocity case on 13 August. Add up every maximum the decree sets, stage by stage, and the outer limit falls in May 2027.

A month has passed since Brazil opened the first case in its history under the Economic Reciprocity Law, and nothing has been taxed. That is not drift. It is the regulation working as written. So we read the regulation and did the addition. The decree that puts the law into practice is Decree 12,551 of 14 July 2025, and the deadlines sit in articles 11, 13 and 15. Four stages, each with its own clock, and every one of them slower than a first reading…

Bar chart of three dates in days from 15 September: PS debate 3, Chega debate 9, Chega VAT cut 108

Politics 15 September 2026

The Socialists booked their cost-of-living debate for Friday. Chega's own measures only bite in January

The request for an urgent debate reached the speaker's office on Monday morning, six days ahead of Chega's scheduled slot on 24 September. Chega's VAT bills would not take effect until January 2027.

Portugal's new parliamentary session opens on Wednesday, and the first fight is already in the diary. On Monday morning the Socialists asked for an urgent debate on the rising cost of living, to be held this Friday, which puts them in front of Chega, who had booked the same subject for 24 September. Six days is not much. In a parliament where the opposition is competing to look the least patient, it is enough. Fuel, food and housing costs. That is the…

Tugadaily bar chart: of 507 Portuguese ministers since 1976, 43.4% had strong relevant experience, 34% some, 22% none

Politics 14 September 2026

Portugal's ministers got more specialised. The parties never loosened their grip

A Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos study reads every one of the 507 ministers appointed since 1976. Technical credentials climbed across five decades, and so did the share of ministers carrying a party card — from 52% under Costa to about 70% under Montenegro.

The headline number from Monday's Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos study is the unflattering one. Of the 507 people appointed to a Portuguese ministry since 1976, 113 of them — 22% — took the job with no professional experience anyone would call relevant to it. That comes from Who Governs Portugal? A Comparative Analysis of Ministerial Profiles (1976–2025), coordinated by Marcelo Camerlo and António Costa Pinto, which sets Portugal against Spain,…

Politics 14 September 2026

Sweden's Social Democrats came first on Sunday. Nobody has the final numbers yet

Magdalena Andersson's party led on 28.4% and election-night projections give the left bloc a majority in the 349-seat Riksdag. The definitive count only starts on Monday and takes about a week.

Sweden voted on Sunday, and the party that has shaped Swedish politics for most of the past century finished first again. Magdalena Andersson's Social Democrats took 28.4%, ahead of everyone else, and election-night projections hand the left bloc a majority in the Riksdag: 183 of 349 seats, off 51.3% of the vote against 46.8% for the right. "Election-night projections" is the operative phrase. The preliminary result published by Sweden's election…

Politics 13 September 2026

When does Chega vote on its leadership again? Its board is aiming at 20–22 November

The party's national board has proposed an ordinary congress for that weekend, with around a thousand delegates to be elected across the districts first. It has to choose new national bodies and settle the statutory problems the Constitutional Court identified.

Chega is going to elect everything again. The party's national board has proposed an ordinary congress for 20, 21 and 22 November, with an agenda of two items that amount to one: choose the national bodies afresh, and clear up the organisational and statutory questions the Constitutional Court left hanging. André Ventura, the party leader, announced it at a press conference at the national headquarters in Lisbon. The proposal now goes to the party's board…

Officials of the Portuguese Guard professionals association seated around a table at its national headquarters, the APG/GNR crest on the wall behind them

Politics 12 September 2026

Portugal's GNR will protest alongside the PSP from late September

The 2024 agreement delivered a risk supplement worth more than 300 euros a month. Two years on, the pay regime, the career structure and the appraisal system are still unrevised, and the Guard's professional association is calling protests through mid-October.

The secretariat of the Associação dos Profissionais da Guarda met on Friday at its national headquarters in Lisbon and left with a decision. The GNR is going out. The actions start at the end of this month, run through the middle of October, and finish in what the association describes as a major national protest. The arithmetic behind it is two years old. A 2024 agreement with the ministry raised the service and risk supplement by more than 300 euros a…

Politics 11 September 2026

Portugal's parliament is back on Wednesday with six sitting days booked and a budget due on 12 October

The leaders' conference has set the autumn agenda: national exams, online gambling, the start of the school year, the INEM shake-up and the urban tenancy regime. The prime minister's first debate waits until 9 October.

The new legislative session opens on Wednesday with six plenary days already booked before the end of September. At the far end of the queue sits the date that matters to everyone: the 2027 State Budget proposal must reach the Assembly of the Republic by 12 October. The budget framework law puts the deadline at 10 October. This year that falls on a Saturday, so it slides to the following Monday.