As can be seen from our ‘Year in Review’, the country was voted part of the ‘Iberian Miracle’ early on (saving the EU’s economic bacon); tourism has been going from strength to strength; well-heeled Americans have been decamping here from over the Pond (Portugal seen as a sanctuary from the madness of the world); Lisbon has been hailed as the happiest place on earth for travellers; and then this month, the UK’s financial magazine The Economist named the country “Economy of the Year”.
Of course, there have been dips along the way, the worst being the unbelievable tragedy in Lisbon when an iconic tram (funicular) came off its rails and crashed at high speed, killing 16 people and injuring many more – some of them with life-limiting consequences. But the ‘balance’ of the year – at least on paper – is positive.
That doesn’t mean 2026 is going to be ‘a walk in the park’ – far from it.
Between all the events/accolades and general news, there is the reality that Portugal today is a country deeply divided.
For all the assertions that it would govern through dialogue, the minority AD (centre-right) government has failed to forge any lasting ‘friendships’ in parliament – meaning that everything it tries to do seems to come up against resistance.
In many ways, the prime minister adds to the executive’s difficulties by ‘going overboard’. For example, as the general strike against AD’s proposed labour reforms loomed, he declared: “Portugal is at the top of Europe and of the world. Portugal is a country where salaries are growing, where the young have more opportunities today than they had some years ago, where investment perspectives are high and where credibility and reputation are high.”
Instead of ‘reaching out to fellow parties of the right’ and perhaps getting some support, even averting the national ‘stoppage’, the PM seemed intent on making his point – and taking credit for ‘AD’ (the Democratic Alliance).
The elections of May 18 technically brought in a majority of parties thinking along the lines of the centre-right/right – but CHEGA and Iniciativa Liberal are in no hurry to hitch themselves to AD.
In fact, CHEGA and its bombastic leader André Ventura (currently running for President of the Republic and doing ‘very well’ in the latest polls) seem intent on sabotaging the government: one minute they ‘might support a policy’; the next, they are ‘not so sure’.
With the general strike now a week passed – and the government insisting that it will ‘stand fast’ by its policies on labour reform, which the syndicates reject – CHEGA has already said that it will not be supporting them.
This suggests another ‘impasse’: CHEGA is now the second strongest party in parliament. If it does not support the government (all the left-wing parties are dead against the labour reform bill); the reform is essentially ‘dead in the water’.
Leaving politicians aside for a moment, a look towards the people also sees a simmering resentment: the housing crisis continues to frustrate and infuriate – but there is a lot more now, and the anger goes beyond the ‘cost of living/lack of adequate healthcare’.
Fury is directed at the ‘unelected’ in Brussels who have been cracking the whip over the need to plaster the country in solar panels; drill into fertile landscapes for strategic minerals (even rare earths) and generally sacrifice ways of life for an energetic transition that is being sold as ‘green’.
The new year will see a major demo in Lisbon from communities of the Beira Baixa that do not accept the siting of 1.36 million photovoltaic solar panels across various municipalities – and insist that they equally “do not accept the way these projects are being conducted”.
This is the nub of the issue: projects with environmental consequences are invariably put to public consultation – and then irrespective of the reasons and number of people who speak out, they move forward regardless.
Observers have said that this latest ‘Sophia Solar Park’ has just pushed people too far.
And then there is the enormous brouhaha over immigration – and how best to control it.
With queues of desperate immigrants waiting every day outside AIMA offices for a sign that their paperwork will come through, the reality appears to be that the government is playing for time: desperate to reduce the pressure on a country that has seen the number of foreign residents increase four-fold – to almost 10% of the population – in the last decade.
As we wrote this text, Constitutional Court judges had just said (for the second time) that key changes to the Nationality Law – approved in parliament – were unconstitutional. Whatever the case, leader writer Armando Esteves Pereira of Correio da Manhã stresses the law must be changed: “If it isn’t, we run the risk of very soon having neighbourhoods with a majority of citizens of Portuguese nationality with minimum knowledge of the language, history and culture of the country! A country with a little more than 10 million inhabitants, with a history of 900 years, runs the risk of being diluted.”
Esteves Pereira writes in the country’s ‘best-selling tabloid’. It is fair to accept that what he says resonates with ‘traditional Portuguese citizens’ – which is why the Constitutional Court’s deliberations may, in the end, get short shrift.
News articles have explained that more than two-thirds of parliament voted for the Nationality Law in its current form – and thus MPs are at liberty to stick with it, irrespective of the Constitutional ‘veto’.
The veto, however, jars with the warning that has come out of the United States this month over ‘the civilizational erasure of Europe’. However one judges the current US administration, there are certain things in the country’s latest defence strategy document that ‘ring true’: the blurring of national identities in Europe being one of them.
Another extremely moot point is the Trump administration‘s admission that it will work with nationalist parties in Europe to essentially try and scupper the EU, as it stands, from within.
CHEGA is one of those parties – and we can already see the ‘influence’ it wields, albeit it did not do as well as it had hoped in the municipal elections of October.
2026 is going to be an eye-opener: definitely not ‘more of the same’. The world is changing – and even Portugal, sitting pretty on the westernmost edge of Europe, will be changing with it.
