Economy

‘Look for the persons who benefit and you will know’ – Lenin

The four biggest economies in the Eurozone – Germany, France, Italy, and Spain – together represent two-thirds of the European Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an important indicator of economic health.

The Portuguese economy is relatively small – representing 1.5% of the European GDP – and surpassed by countries with less population like the Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, and Ireland. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts a growth in the Portuguese economy of 2.6% this year and stabilization at around 2% in the medium term, with a fall in inflation to 5.6%. Earlier this year, the IMF had predicted a growth of just 1%. The above-expected growth is mainly attributed to an increase in tourism – after the coronavirus pandemic – and the export of goods.

According to the Portuguese Government, export is increasing and represents 40% of its GDP. Cork is the most exported product – sold to 133 countries – reaching a record of 1.2 billion euros in 2021.

The quality newspaper Expresso disclosed that wine exportations last year  – especially to the US, the UK, Canada, and Brazil – amounted to almost 1 billion euros. Portuguese wine is popular in every continent especially because of its original products like Green Wine, Port, and Madeira Wine.

Moreover, the country is the 4th biggest exporter of olive oil in the world and exports plenty of shoes, clothing, vegetables, and bicycles.

Last year a downward trend in debt and deficit was common in the Eurozone where public debt stood at 92% of GPD – four percentage points lower than at the end of 2021.Eurostat revealed that Portugal was able to register an even more pronounced reduction (eleven percentage points) in 2022, putting its actual public debt at 114%.

Even so, the Portuguese debt remains one of the highest of the 27 member states, just behind Greece and Italy.

The financial rating agency Fitch recently reaffirmed the assessment of the Portuguese debt at BBB+.
The robust reduction in public debt was also highlighted by the US agency, which forecasts that the Portuguese debt will further decrease to 105% next year. 

Even though Portugal’s economy has grown above the EU average this year, it still has one of the lowest growth rates in the world.

According to the newspaper Expresso, the GDP in the country has grown at a mean rate of only 1.2% per year since 1999 and is unlikely to change its course by 2028.


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Bordalo II

His works are considered ‘trash art’

‘I’ am part of a very consumerist and materialistic generation.
The education we receive is directed towards overconsumption, with excessive production of stuff, especially technology.’

Big Trash Animals (Grandes Animais do Lixo) is a series of artworks aimed to draw attention to waste production and pollution and its effect on the planet.
The idea is to depict nature itself – in this case animals – out of materials that are responsible for its destruction.

‘The works are built from scrap.’
The majority are found in wastelands or abandoned factories; damaged bumpers, burnt garbage cans, plastic stuff, and old tires.
They are camouflaging the result of our greedy habits with little ecological and social awareness.

Artur Bordalo (Lisbon, 1987) uses his artist name Bordalo II (‘the second’) as a tribute to his grandfather in order to promote continuity and reinvention of his artistic legacy.
At first sight, you might associate his name with the famous plastic artist Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro. In fact, it is an allusion to his grandfather Real Bordalo, a painter of watercolors.

In his youth, he lived between two artistic worlds; in one he watched his grandfather painting landscapes and typical scenes of the city and in the other, he dedicated his time to producing illegal graffiti in Lisbon.
This practice helped him to get comfortable with big dimensions and work on the street.

In 2007 he enrolled at the Fine Arts Faculty of Lisbon in painting. He attended school for three years without ever completing it. Those years, however, allowed him to discover sculpture, and ceramics, and to experiment with materials that distanced him from painting, which had taken him there in the first place.

The public space would become the canvas for his creative expressions of color and scale and the platform where he gradually transformed his work, which is focused on questioning the materialistic society of which he is also part.

Since 2012 Artur Bordalo – who calls himself an artivist –  has created over 200 animal sculptures using more than 60 tons of reused materials.
He is also famous for his Railway Series in Portugal in which he uses train tracks to make art.
His 3-dimensional installations can be found all over the world.

His consciousness and concern for the environment have always been there. I
n 2013 he presented his first art piece made out of garbage at the festival Walk & Talk in the Azores.
When he is not traveling abroad, Bordalo continues collecting street trash for his sculptures in his studio in northern Lisbon.

Enjoy the week                                                 Aproveite a semana


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Carnation

Many people will be familiar with the Carnation Revolution in Portugal that on April 25, 1974, overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo (New State) regime, established by fascist leader António de Oliveira Salazar.
Last month its 49th anniversary – a national holiday coined as Dia de Liberdade (Freedom Day) – was celebrated all over the country.

But how became the carnation the symbol of the military coup organized by military officers of the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas, MFA), that opposed the brutal regime and the ongoing war in Portugal’s African colonies (i.e. Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Saõ Tomé and Principe)?

An explanation is, that almost no shots were fired during the peaceful takeover of the military and that when the population took to the streets to celebrate the end of the dictatorship and the colonial wars in Africa, carnations were put into the silent muzzles of the rifles of the armed forces.

However, an alternative interpretation is related to a special woman named Celeste de Caeiros. On April 25, 1974, she was 40 years old and a waitress at the Franjinhas restaurant, on Braamcamp street, next to the Marquis of Pombal square.

That date happened to be the restaurant’s 1st anniversary and red carnations were purchased to hand out to the customers. When Celeste arrived, she was told to go home because a revolution was underway and the restaurant closed. She ended up taking the flowers home when she ran straight into Portuguese soldiers and tanks making their way to the government buildings.

One of the soldiers asked her for the cigarette but as Celeste didn’t smoke, she offered him a red carnation instead which he put into the barrel of his shotgun. In no time his fellow soldiers started doing the same. Photographs capturing the occasion and images of soldiers with carnations in their guns became the symbol of Portugal’s revolution.

Although the Carnation Revolution was peaceful and within hours brought an end to the oppressive regime  – at the same time opening the door for the independence of the African colonies – the transition to a stable democratic government was delayed until 1986, when Portugal entered the European Union.

In honour of the revolution, Lisbon’s ionic suspension bridge (a lookalike of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge) formerly known as the Ponto Salazar ( Salazar Bridge), was renamed Ponte 25 de Abril (April 25 Bridge).


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Cesarean

Cesareans prevail in the private sector

The two largest maternity hospitals in Portugal are private. Most babies there are delivered by cesarean section.

Last year a third of all births in the Greater Lisbon area took place in 3 big private hospitals (Lusíadas, Luz, and CUF), where over half of the babies were born by cesarean section. In the 13 public health hospitals of Lisbon, the cesarean rate proved to be much lower (31%), although still higher than recommended by the World Health Organisation (10-15%).

All over the world, there is an increase in cesareans, especially in wealthier environments (highly educated women) for non-medical reasons. The fastest increase occurs in South Asia. In Europe, there are major differences in the cesarean section between member states, where rates vary from 52% in Cyprus to 25% in the UK and 17% in Sweden.

Ten years ago a commission was created in Portugal to reduce the number of cesareans in the country. Although the rate decreased initially, the country continues to rank poorly on this indicator at the international level, basically because of the dominating private sector, where cesarean rates use to be twice as high as in public hospitals.
 

Portuguese women who can choose to have a child in private hospitals are mainly women with health insurance, which allows them to pay only a small part of the cost of deliveries – which for private individuals can vary from 4000 euros for vaginal delivery to 7000 euros for a cesarean section.

Moreover, the lack of obstetricians in the public sector makes more and more women prefer to give birth in a calm private environment, where most cesareans are scheduled instead of urgent, as in busy public hospitals.

While structural decisions in the ailing National Health Service (SNS) are time after time postponed, the outflow of obstetricians to the private sector continues.

‘Just last week a doctor left the country’s largest public health hospital Santa Maria in Lisbon for the private sector exclusively for financial reasons’, complains Dr. Ayres de Campos, who leads a governmental commission to tackle problems in obstetric care.

‘In the SNS you get very poorly paid and work long hours. Everything that is complicated comes to public hospitals. For years and years, management has been chaotic, there is an absence of thinking in favor of the common good and lots of conflicts of interest’, he sighs.


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Underground

In Lisbon’s metro, you can find art under your feet

The construction of the Metropolitana de Lisboa started in August 1955. The initial line consisted of 6,5 kilometers and comprised 11 stations and two-carriage trains. Nowadays there are four Lines (Blue, Green, Yellow, and Red) with a total of 56 stations. It certainly isn’t a punishment to travel in Lisbon’s underground. Some stations will surprise you with their impressive architecture.

The Olaias station was inaugurated in 1998 to serve Expo’98 visitors. Situated between Alameda and Bela Vista the station is part of the Red Line. It is considered one of the most beautiful in the world. The architect Tomás Tavira designed an imposing station with high pillars in industrial style and many colors, both on the platform and throughout the route that passengers take to enter or exit the metro.

The Jardim Zoológico station, situated between Laranjeiras and Praça de Espanha, is part of the Blue Line and one of the first metro stations in the capital. It used to be called Sete Rios after the square under which it is located.
The artistic interventions are by Júlio Resende, who decorated the station with cave paintings referring to animals present in the Lisbon Zoo.

Another pioneering station on the blue line is Parque in the Parque Eduardo VII area and situated between the stations São Sebastião and Pombal.  After its inauguration in 1959, the station was completely remodeled in 1994 by Francoise Schein and Frederica Matta, who worked on the theme of the Portuguese Discoveries, using shades of blue painted tiles.

The Campo Grande station integrates two lines, the Yellow and the Green Line. It opened in 1993 and is the first station built on a viaduct. From there one can easily reach the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon. The interventions on its walls were carried out by Eduardo Nery, who chose Portuguese tiles arranged unconventionally.

At present, the Metropolitano de Lisboa is expanding its network with an extension of the Red Line between São Sebastião and Alcântera and the construction of a new – Violet – Line between Odivelas and Loures.

The two kilometers long circle line connecting the Yellow Line to the Green Line and whose excavation was completed last month will include two new metro stations Estrela (Star) and Santos ( Saints). The names are promising. Let’s see whether these stations will be as beautifully decorated as the ones mentioned above.


Happy Easter                         Feliz Páscoa             (pic Ptnews/Público)















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Cancer

Cancer is the main cause of premature death in Portugal

Malignant tumors are the second cause of death in the country – after cardiovascular diseases (including strokes and heart attacks) – killing every year nearly 30,000 people.
This number corresponds to one-third of the country’s annual births, at a time when the Portuguese population is shrinking.

At the opening of World Cancer Day Rui Portugal, the deputy director general of the General Directorate of Health (DGS) declared that roughly 60,000 new cases of cancer are discovered every year. Most common are lung, colon, and prostate cancer in men and breast and colon cancer in women.

Increased life expectancy (at present 80,7 years in Portugal), exposure to carcinogens (tobacco, alcohol, air pollution) and unhealthy lifestyles explain the progressive increase in the number of new cases.

He therefore emphasized that the main public health policies for controlling cancer should focus on risk factors such as tobacco and alcohol consumption at the same time urging the population to adopt a healthier lifestyle.

National screening programs for the prevention of cancer are little effective. Although the number of people screened for colon cancer has increased compared to the pre-Covid years, screening coverage in the country is heterogeneous and mainly concentrated in urban centers. There are rural areas where screening practically doesn’t exist.

‘Adherence strategies also need to be improved. People need to be convinced to join’, says José Deniz, director of the National Program for Oncological Diseases.

The president of the Portuguese Society of Pneumology, António Morais, recalls that lung cancer is one of the main causes of death. And, although fewer people are smoking nowadays, 15% of the population still does.

‘Smoking cessation consultations were among the most lagging behind during the pandemic and continue to do so as a result of the lack of family doctors. It is necessary to take advantage of the window of opportunity when someone considers quitting smoking.’

Moreover, he emphasized, there is the problem of electronic cigarettes. ‘It is said to harm less because it doesn’t burn but the nicotine is still there, causing addiction. It is a hoax published to exhaustion, even knowing that tobacco advertising has been banned in Portugal.’

Prevention should start in school. ‘Children are also health agents’, says Maria de Belém Roseira, the former Minister of Health. ‘They must take home the advice their parents did not have or did not value’.


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Salaries

‘Economy should serve people, not the opposite’

According to Eurostat minimum wages in the EU member states range from 399 euros per month in Bulgaria to 2,387 euros per month in Luxembourg. As of this year, the minimum wage in Portugal is 760 euros per month. In the case of salaries, the country also remains at the tail end of average salaries in the EU, ranking 17th out of 22 member states.

Last year more than 55% of workers received wages of less than 1,000 euros per month, a percentage that rises to 65% in the case of young people under 30 years of age, according to data from the Ministry of Labour, Solidarity, and Social Security.

The INE (Instituto Nacional de Estatística) latest report from December shows that the total average monthly gross earnings per worker increased last year by 3,6% to 1,411 euros. Activities related to agriculture and fishing paid the lowest (an average of 933 euros/month), whereas jobs in electricity and gas paid substantially better (an average of 3,621 euros/month).

Although the average gross monthly salary rose, the rise hides a real drop of 4% if the effect of inflation (on average 7,6% in 2022) is taken into account, according to ECO (Economia Online). Only top managers and representatives of the legislative power had salary increases above inflation (by 9,6%). In highly qualified professions –doctors, teachers, and scientists – salaries only rose 1%.

Portuguese emigrants with higher qualifications – representing a quarter of all citizens who left the country in the last decade – are able to receive salaries three times more abroad, according to the study ‘Exodus of skills and academic mobility from Portugal to Europe’ from the Institute of Sociology of the University of Porto. ‘One of the reasons for emigrating is precisely the low salary level in our country’, points out João Teixeira Lopes, one of the authors.

This accounts not only for nurses but also for doctors. Medical specialists in Portugal are among the least paid in the EU and the country is located in the 6th lowest position, just above Greece, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. In Germany and Belgium they would easily earn three times more and in the Netherlands and Ireland even four times more.

Property prices in Portugal are skyrocketing whereas household incomes are left behind. Nowadays a Portuguese citizen needs the equivalent of 11,4 years of salary to be able to buy a 100 square meter house.


According to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the country appears above the middle of the table, ahead of countries such as the US (4.1 years), Norway (7.8 years), and the UK (11 years) but behind Switzerland (12.6 years), Luxembourg (15.8 years) and New Zealand (18.7 years).

The CNJP ( National Committee on Justice and Peace) warns that the salary of many Portuguese workers does not allow them to overcome poverty. ’Economy, business, and work should serve people, not the opposite.


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WorldYouthDay

The largest gathering of young Catholics worldwide

According to the Census of 2021, 80% of Portuguese older than 15 years adhere to the Roman Catholic faith.
World Youth Day (WYD) is a major, religious encounter between young Catholics from all over the world and the Pope taking place for the first time this year in Portugal.

This biggest event ever is to be held from 1-6 August in Lisbon and the neighboring municipality of Loures. Around 1.5 million youngsters from 180 countries are expected. To date, more than 10,000 volunteers have been registered but 20 to 30 thousand are expected. During the event, police officers will see their holidays suspended.

The WYD occurs every two or three years in a city chosen by the Pope, lasts about a week, and is both a pilgrimage and a youth festival. The event is open to everyone between 14 and 30 years. The first WYD) took place in Buenos Aires (1987) and the last in Panama (2019).

The main ceremonies take place in the Tagus Park, north of Parque das Nações, along the Tagus river. Pope Francis will arrive on the 3rd and close the event on the 6th of August with the ‘missa do envio’ (farewell mass).

There will be an altar stage constructed at the Tagus costing about 3 million euros (after the event to be used for other shows and spectacles).
The four-meter high stage will have a capacity for 1250 people (including bishops, concelebrants, choir and orchestra, sign language interpreters, and technical staff) and covers an area of 3250 square meters.

Costs are estimated at 160 million euros. Lisbon City Council is willing to invest up to 35 million (including 21,5 million for the requalification of the Tagus Park), the Government 36,5 million, and Loures up to 10 million euros. The president of the Lisbon WYD Foundation and auxiliary bishop of Lisbon Américo Aguiar declared that the Church’s investment will be at least 80 million (30 million for feeding the participants) as the Church will be responsible for the costs of everything related to the reception of pilgrims. 

The economic return on the studies carried out in relation to Madrids WYD (2011) represented an economic benefit of around 350 million euros. ‘I assume that Portugal will have an economic return of the same magnitude’, declared José Sá Fernandes, the government coordinator of the event.

Given the expected influx of participants to the week-long Catholic jamboree prices for accommodation are already skyrocketing. Hotels in Lisbon are cited as charging over 4000 euros a week, apartments in Moscavide, Loures cost 5000 a week, an apartment in Fátima 8000 a week, and a three-bedroom apartment in the nearby Parque da Nações likely to cost 2500 euros a day!

The director of the National Department of Youth, father Filipe Diniz, believes the recent report on child sexual abuse by members of the clergy will not affect the event. In fact, he went so far as to suggest that participation in WYD could ‘increase religious vocation’.

Two tons of wheat produced in the Alentejo will be transformed by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Monastery in Lisbon into millions of hosts for the Eucharistic celebrations.

Most surprising, however, is that six months from the opening hardly any construction work has begun on site.


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Housing

Lisbon is more expensive than Barcelona, Madrid, or Milan

Portugal’s property market is booming but the damage inflicted on the social fabric of the big cities is profound. Unaffordable rents and purchase prices are hitting not just those on subsistence prices and pensions, but ordinary workers and their families.

The actual situation can be traced to the 2008 debt crisis after which the country was required to deregulate in order to entice foreign investment. In 2012 the former conservative government of Passos Coelho liberalized the real estate sector. Within five years rents in Lisbon skyrocketed.

That same year the golden visa program was ushered in offering residency permits in exchange for real estate acquisitions worth 500,000 euros or more.
A separate ‘non-habitual residency scheme’ was also brought in, which gave foreign citizens, who spent half a year in the country, a 10-year tax break on income earned elsewhere. As interest from abroad began to grow, demand outstripped supply pushing house prices up and people with average income out.

Besides the golden visa program and the non-habitual residency scheme, the expansive growth of Airbnb-style short-term rentals (Alojamento Local) in the urban centers further reduced the housing supply.

Portugal is among the EU countries where housing prices almost doubled in the last decade. Between 2010 and 2022 sales prices went up by 80% while rents rose by 28%. In the eurozone increases during this period were respectively 50% and 18%. Even last year the prices of residential property in the country rose 19% , the biggest increase in 30 years.


Buying or renting a house in Lisbon these days is becoming even more expensive than in some of the main European cities. Last year the average price per square meter of houses for sale in the capital surpassed that of Madrid, Barcelona, and Milan and only in Paris and Milan is renting a house more expensive than in Lisbon.


Although the Socialist Government of António Costa recently approved a National Housing Program allocating nearly 3 billion euros – thanks to EU funding from Brussels – to reinforce the public housing stock until 2026, associations that fight for the right to housing consider that the program is not enough to solve the problem.

‘Moreover, we identified some gaps in the bill, from benefits for certain groups (rich foreigners who can buy at prices that Portuguese families cannot afford) to the exclusion of migrants and refugees’, declares Maria João Costa, on behalf of housing rights organization Habita.

For this year a slowdown in the rise of house prices is expected. According to Moody’s house prices may fall by up to 3% whereas S&P Global Ratings predicts that Portugal will be one of the European countries that will feel the most intensive fall in house prices (-4.4%) this year.


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Goldenvisa

Has the golden visa program fulfilled its role?

The Golden Visa program in Portugal is very lucrative and at the same time much-criticized residency by-investment program for people from non-EU countries.

To obtain such a ‘golden’ permit one has to invest at least half a million euros in property, in exchange for permanent residency and unimpeded visa-free travel throughout the EU. Unlike Malta and Cyprus, Portugal doesn’t confer golden visa applicants with Portuguese citizenship i.e. passport.

Last October the Authorisation of Residence for Investment (ARI) – as the program is officially called – celebrated its 10th anniversary. The scheme is heavily criticized for some time. Both at home – for sending house prices and rents up, particularly in Lisbon – and by Brussels as it poses a risk to the security of the EU as a whole.

Since the creation of the program in 2012 a total of 11,535 residence permits have been granted, according to the Immigration and Border Service (SEF). Moreover, 18,808 residence permits have been issued to family members during those ten years.

The program has attracted 6.754 billion euros in investment by foreigners mainly from China (45%), Brazil (10%), Turkey (5%), the USA (5%), and South Africa (5%), with the bulk (over 90%) going into real estate.

Golden residence permits for foreigners in Portugal no longer make sense, according to the British journalist Oliver Bullough and author of the book ‘Butler to the World’ telling news agency Lusa: ’I can understand the golden visa program in the circumstances in which the country introduced the policy, after the financial crisis in 2012 but not why it continues because it attracts people who want to hide money or evade taxes.’

Portugal’s former Socialist Member of the European Parliament Ana Gomes, a strident voice against corruption in the country, also strongly condemns the policy. ‘Golden visas are a form of prostitution of the Schengen system that gives kleptocrats, criminals and money launderers a fast track into Europe’.


Although the Government changed the law for golden visas to redirect investments from the two largest cities (Lisbon and Porto) and the Algarve coast to rural areas early last year, the weight of foreigners on the residential market in Lisbon hasn’t decreased.

In 2022 there were 808 authorizations given for the purchase of properties. Only 61 (7,5%) were located in low-density areas and Lisbon alone concentrated almost half of the properties transacted.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa declared in November at Lisbon’s Web Summit that the country is likely to scrap its golden visa program as the 10-year-old scheme has fulfilled its role and may no longer be justified.

It will be clear, however, that the last word has not been said about a program that does make the country such easy money.


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