The facade of Escola Secundaria Francisco Franco in Funchal, with cars parked out front

Politics 31 July 2026

Portugal's teacher recruitment gets a second contest — and this one never closes

The government approved a new model for hiring and placing teachers built on two centralised national contests, one annual and one continuous, starting in the 2027/2028 school year.

Anyone who has watched a class sit teacherless through November knows the flaw: the hiring round is settled in July and the school breaks in January. On Thursday the Council of Ministers gave first-stage approval to a new model for recruiting and placing teachers that goes straight at that mismatch.

How will the new teacher hiring system work?

There will be two centralised national contests instead of one. The annual round keeps doing what it does, filling schools’ permanent vacancies on the calendar everyone already knows. The second one is new: a continuous contest built for the temporary gaps that open mid-year — the maternity leave in October, the long sick leave in February, the vacancy nobody saw coming in March.

In practice it is the difference between waiting for the next round and having a round permanently running. The government pairs this with digitised procedures, arguing that less paperwork means faster placements and fewer arguments about who got which post.

When does it take effect?

Not until the 2027/2028 school year, so two more years run on the current rules. That is a long runway, but it leaves time to build the platform and for the unions to fight over the final text — this was first-stage approval, which means the wording can still move.

At the same meeting the government adjusted its +Aulas +Sucesso emergency measures, narrowing the salary top-up for retirement-age teachers who keep teaching to the most under-staffed pedagogical zones, and opened the door for graduates to teach the subject their degree directly matches. Same old logic — go and find teachers where they actually are — applied with better aim.

It was also the meeting that extended the school phone ban to years 7 through 9, which made Thursday a busy day for anyone who works in a school. The full communique is on the government portal.

By Tomás Vasconcelos

Image: Rui Carita / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Politics 31 July 2026

Claiming compensation from the Portuguese State won't mean going to court

The Council of Ministers approved an administrative route for State liability claims plus a fast-track regime for administrative cases worth up to €15,000, targeting 18 months.

A pothole that wrecks a wheel. A permit that sat in a drawer for months. A mistake by a public service that cost somebody real money. Until now, anyone wanting to be paid back for that had essentially one route: hire a lawyer and file a case in an administrative court. The Government wants to open a far cheaper door. Straight from the body that caused the damage. The bill approved in the Council of Ministers creates an administrative procedure for…

Politics 30 July 2026

Phones are being banned in Portuguese schools up to year 9, and schools get a term to adjust

Portugal is extending its school phone ban to every pupil up to year 9, in force from 1 January 2027. Who it covers, what the exceptions are and what head teachers are reporting.

The rule already existed for the youngest pupils. Now it moves up the school. The government has decided to extend the classroom phone ban to every pupil up to year 9, through a change to the pupil statute, and it has deliberately avoided dropping the whole thing on schools overnight. On 1 January 2027. The first term of the coming school year works as a run-up, giving schools time to sort out the practicalities, from lockers to pocket rules, before the…

Politics 30 July 2026

Guterres leaves the UN at the end of the year, and seven people already want his chair

António Guterres's term as UN Secretary-General ends on 31 December 2026. Who the candidates are, how the choice is made, and when the name becomes public.

On 31 December, António Guterres's decade at the head of the United Nations comes to an end, and his successor starts work on 1 January 2027. For Portugal it closes a rare chapter — a Portuguese national does not often hold the most visible job in world diplomacy — and for the UN it is the biggest decision of a year in which the organisation was already taking hits from every direction. The field has grown through the year and now stands at seven. In the…

Politics 29 July 2026

André Ventura's parliament office was found turned upside down, and the judicial police have been in

The Chega leader's office in Portugal's parliament was found ransacked on the morning of 28 July. The door was not forced, the PJ is investigating, and Ventura says documents on Luís Neves are missing.

The first person into the office on Tuesday morning was a cleaner. She found papers across the floor, drawers pulled open and the whole room turned over — and went straight to security. The office belongs to André Ventura, leader of Chega, inside the Palácio de São Bento, and from that moment the morning in parliament stopped being an ordinary one. Parliamentary security sealed the room immediately and handed the case to the Polícia Judiciária, which sent…

Politics 28 July 2026

Trump is hosting Zelenskyy and Netanyahu on the same day, so both wars land at the White House at once

Donald Trump holds separate meetings on Tuesday with Ukraine's president and Israel's prime minister. Ukraine's peace process and the war with Iran are both at decisive stages.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the morning, Benjamin Netanyahu straight after. Donald Trump put both meetings on the same Tuesday and, deliberately or not, turned the day into a stocktake of the two wars driving American foreign policy. The Russia-Ukraine peace process. A White House official summed up the American position in one short line — now is the time to end the war — and the tone of the relationship has shifted a long way from last year's tense…

Politics 28 July 2026

The ICC has removed Karim Khan as chief prosecutor, something it had never done before

ICC member states voted to remove chief prosecutor Karim Khan after findings of serious misconduct, which he denies. It is the first time the court has ousted the person leading its prosecutions.

The International Criminal Court has spent 24 years judging heads of state and had never had to settle a problem this big inside its own walls. It settled this one with a vote: Karim Khan is no longer chief prosecutor. The Assembly of States Parties, where the court's 125 member states sit, concluded that he had committed serious misconduct and a serious breach of duty, following harassment allegations brought by a female member of staff who worked with…

Politics 28 July 2026

Portugal's single social benefit gets its rulebook within days, and it costs 30 million euros more a year

The government is about to approve the decree that sets amounts and eligibility for the Prestacao Social Unica, the benefit folding 13 separate supports into one.

We are days away from knowing who gets paid and how much. The government is preparing to approve the decree that sets the amounts and eligibility conditions for the Prestacao Social Unica, and the labour ministry has already put a figure on it: an extra 30 million euros a year in social protection. It is an attempt to tidy the house. Instead of thirteen separate benefits inside Social Security's solidarity subsystem, including the minimum income support…

The headquarters of Portugal's Judicial Police in Lisbon, the force Luis Neves led before becoming a minister

Politics 26 July 2026

Luis Neves is getting a parliamentary inquiry into his years running the PJ, and he says bring it on

Chega is forcing a parliamentary inquiry into Luis Neves' terms as national director of Portugal's Judicial Police, set for September. Iniciativa Liberal wants the interior minister questioned sooner.

The story about the interior minister's home renovations just changed size. This is no longer a row about invoices and a trailer: Chega leader André Ventura announced on Friday that his party is going ahead with a parliamentary inquiry into Luis Neves' time as national director of the Judicial Police. The minister, who has spent weeks insisting he is perfectly calm, answered with two words: good, finally. It is the heaviest instrument parliament has for…

Politics 25 July 2026

US Congress wants a button that switches artificial intelligence off

The AI Kill Switch Act, filed by two congressmen from opposite parties, would force AI companies to be able to throttle or shut down their own models, with fines of up to 20 million dollars a day.

There is a bill in Washington that would require artificial intelligence companies to keep an emergency switch on their own models. It is called the AI Kill Switch Act, it was filed on 23 July by a Democrat and a Republican together, and it grew out of an incident nobody in the industry enjoyed explaining. It is legislation requiring developers of sufficiently powerful AI systems to retain the technical ability to throttle, suspend or fully shut them…

Politics 25 July 2026

Carneiro has named the three things PS won't trade away in Portugal's 2027 budget

Socialist leader José Luís Carneiro says the 2027 state budget talks are wide open, but he has set three red lines. Here is what they are.

Portugal's 2027 state budget is still months from Parliament, but the Socialist leader has already laid his cards down. José Luís Carneiro says everything is still open in the talks with the government, while making it perfectly clear there are three things his party will not give up. First, the constitutional ground rules. Carneiro was blunt about it: any attempt to strip out the entrenched limits on constitutional revision is a non-starter for PS.…

Politics 24 July 2026

Prison and reintegration staff are getting a pay bump — a 225-euro risk supplement and two new careers

The Government approved two decree-laws creating two special careers in Portugal's prison and social reintegration services, with new salary tables and a 225-euro monthly risk supplement.

People who spend their working days inside a prison are finally getting some recognition in their pay packet. The Council of Ministers approved two decree-laws that reorganise the careers of the Directorate-General for Reintegration and Prison Services (DGRSP), create two special social reintegration careers, and change what these workers take home at the end of the month. The centrepiece is a risk supplement of 225 euros a month. Added to the salary…

Politics 24 July 2026

Portugal's 5%-of-GDP defence pledge could land on families' tax bills

A Portuguese Finance Ministry analysis warns that meeting NATO's target of 5% of GDP on defence by 2035 may require higher direct taxes on households.

The short answer: yes, we'll probably pay for this. An analysis by Portugal's own Finance Ministry concludes that the country's NATO commitment — reaching 5% of GDP on defence by 2035 — may force higher taxes on households, because the growth the spending generates won't, on its own, cover the bill. At the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, allies agreed a new target: by 2035, each country should invest 5% of GDP in defence and related areas, with at least…

Politics 23 July 2026

Montenegro went to Rome to bring Portugal and Italy closer, 11 years after the last visit

Luís Montenegro visited Rome to strengthen cooperation between Portugal and Italy — the first trip by a Portuguese head of government to the country in about 11 years.

Portugal and Italy have sat down together again at the highest level. Luís Montenegro travelled to Rome for a round of meetings with Italian leaders, a visit that opens a new phase in relations between the two countries — with one striking detail: it's been about 11 years since a Portuguese head of government officially visited Italy. It isn't just protocol. Portugal and Italy are two southern European countries with plenty in common on the European…

Politics 22 July 2026

Montenegro is skipping his summer holidays — and Ventura is daring him into a confidence vote

Portugal's PM cancelled his holidays to steer the government while Chega's André Ventura pushes him to face a confidence motion. What's actually at stake.

Portugal's political summer isn't letting up. Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has announced he won't take any holidays in the coming months and will stay on to coordinate the government's work — just as André Ventura openly dares him to put himself to a confidence vote in parliament. The Chega leader's jab was one of the sharpest yet: he claimed the government is in "accelerated decomposition" and that Montenegro should go before parliament to prove he's…