Welcome to the Week em Breve, a wrap-up of important Portuguese news to keep you up to date and in the know.
World Cup Millions, One Way or the Other
Portugal will host the 2030 World Cup, along with Spain and Morocco. Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro cited a study on Wednesday that the biggest football event in the world will bring in between 707 and 859 million euros for the three countries. In Portugal, the cup is expected to create up to 23,000 jobs and a return of 8.5 euros for every euro invested.
But Público reported that few others in the Portuguese government seem willing to say how much money the country will have to invest to host the event, or how much it will really bring in, although the consensus appears to be that there’ll be a gain.
Reading, Math, and… What Was the Question?
Speaking of basic math: an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development survey of “adult skills” released last week said that around 40% of adults living in Portugal can only perform very basic mental tasks, scoring well below the OECD average when it comes to literacy, numeracy, and adaptive problem solving, or put differently, can only “understand short texts and organised lists,” “do basic maths with whole numbers or money, understand decimals, and find single pieces of information in tables or charts,” and “solve simple problems with few variables and little irrelevant information.”
Maybe some of this has to do with reading? A whopping 58.1% of Portuguese over 16, according to a Eurostat report released this year, didn’t read a single book in all of 2022, compared to an average of 47.2% for the European Union overall.
Maybe it’s going to change, now that Portugal is banning mobile phones in schools from grades 1 through 6…
The National Health Service Woes
A report released last week gives some validation to those convinced that the Portuguese government is actively trying to push people into private healthcare. The annual report from Observatório da Fundação para a Saúde (Health Foundation Observatory) has this to say: “The state promoting previously non-existent private responses without first investing in [the National Health Service] doesn’t make sense.”
Growing Weed in Portugal
But proponents of alternative medicine may have a reason to rejoice: Portugal is at the forefront of producing medical cannabis in Europe, thanks to its climate and regulations.
“No other country in Europe has better environmental conditions,” Jose Martins told Agence France-Presse at his marijuana farm near Serpa, which according to the newswire is “surrounded by razor wire and infrared cameras.”
Over 60 firms have authorization to grow or distribute medical cannabis in Portugal, and 170 are awaiting permission. The country exported 12 tons of the stuff last year, AFP wrote, citing the national drugs agency, Inframed.
