Welcome to the Week em Breve, a wrap-up of important Portuguese news to keep you up to date and in the know.
Affordable housing crisis solved: convert rural land to residential
The Portuguese parliament shrewdly steered the country out of its affordable housing crisis on Friday when it voted to allow municipalities to make more land available for development. What kind of land? Rural land — a move that 21 environmental non-governmental groups decried as one that would lead to “serious impacts on areas classified for their natural values and promote arbitrary and uncontrolled urban expansion,” according to Reuters.
The groups also pointed to an inconvenient reality of Portuguese real estate development, to anyone gunning for developing other-than-urban land: 50% of urban land isn’t yet qualified for residential use, and 12% of all housing — or about 720,000 homes — is in fact vacant, they said, according to Reuters.
Luxury housing crisis also solved: $1.7 billion real estate ‘megaproject’ on a nature reserve
While the Portuguese parliament works tirelessly to make sure poor and middle-class people have housing, property developer VIC Properties, according to The Portugal News, has “revealed” a “diversified offer” to the tune of €1.7 billion, which includes a couple of hotels and “branded residences” as well as more pedestrian apartments, all in Comporta, the beachfront peninsula a ferry-ride across from Setúbal that’s been dubbed by those who know such things as the “Hamptons of Portugal.”
Fortunately for all, the project is “[l]ocated in a nature reserve that extends over 400 hectares,” according to TPN.
…all while the country ranks No. 6 in quality of life by an agency offering relocation services
Regardless of rural redevelopment, something likely needs to be done in Portugal to provide housing for those who like quality and life, now that it’s been named among the top countries in the world for quality of life by a “consultancy firm specializing in investment-based immigration,” according to the real estate listings site Idealista.
Portugal, Global Citizen Solutions wants you to believe, is only behind Sweden, Finland, Germany, Denmark, and — egad! — Spain.
But above Netherlands, Norway, and the U.K. No, seriously, GCS said that.
As the consultancy says, “Discover how welcoming and open certain countries are to migrant communities with our unique passport ranking system.”
Who is the right-wing politician accused of stealing suitcases from baggage check in the Azores?
You may have heard of the former Azores representative of Portugal’s own far-right party Chega, Miguel Arruda, who left the organization after media reports alleging a habit of walking away with other people’s luggage when he flies back home. But that’s not his only — alleged — interesting attribute.
According to Público, the 40-year-old Arruda was expelled from a tuna — one of those Portuguese university groups keen on traditional musical instruments you may have seen entertaining the passerby in nostalgic dress — but also once campaigned for the Socialists, although he also expressed nostalgia for the authoritarian regime of Salazar, compared hormone therapy to castrating kids for vocal effects, and supported the activities of neo-nazis.
His former Chega colleagues did not jump to his defense, booing him during Friday’s parliamentary session, according to The Guardian.
For his part, Arruda suggested that the video surveillance footage of him pilfering other people’s suitcases could be an artificial intelligence-generated deep fake, according to Público.
National health service gets an economist as its head
After António Gandra D’Almeida resigned as head of the National Health Service (Serviço Nacional de Saúde – SNS) following allegations in the press that he collected over €200,000 from multiple hospitals while also serving in the National Institute of Medical Emergency (Instituto Nacional de Emergência Médica – INEM), the new head of the country’s healthcare system is economist Álvaro Almeida, under whom the SNS said it’s aiming for “less verticalized governance” and a “more simplified” structure of the Executive Directorate of the SNS, according to Público.
Portuguese postal service’s latest scheme to avoid doing any kind of postal services
After selling scratch-off tickets as one diversification tactic and launching an NFT as another, the proudly privatized CTT (Correios de Portugal — the country opted to hand over the national postal service to the private sector, as any socialist government would) is stepping up its game once again. The latest brilliant move is to actively suggest that you forget about getting mail at home entirely and just get that parcel delivered to a “Locky” box.
Government gets TikTok account
While the Americans figure out whether TikTok is a national security threat or whatever, the Portuguese government on Jan. 21 went on X, formerly Twitter, to unveil that it’s now on TikTok, as @gov_pt.
The account had 5370 followers as of Jan. 26.
And that’s from just four posts, such as one titled, “What does the prime minister do?” (indeed!) and one advising that those under 35 are exempt from certain government payments.
Take that, influencers!
