On June 1st, the Left Bloc announced a series of visits to the Algarve including one to the ‘Salgados – Praia Grande ‘Eco’-Resort’ site between Armação de Pêra and Galé where MillenniumBPC is trying to sell the project to any international investor willing to take the risk.

The plan to build a golf course, three hotels and a collection of ‘tourist villages’ led to calls from the Bloquistas for "more action and fewer words to end this sort of environmental attack,” and with this in mind the party executive has applied for a parliamentary hearing to discuss the misnamed eco-resort planned for this countryside area.

Residents of Portugal, and of any other European Union country, will be able to make mobile phone calls, use data, and send SMS messages without additional roaming charges when they travel anywhere within the EU.

The new rules take effect on June 15th, 2017, with roaming surcharges for using a mobile phone outside of the home country already significantly reduced as a result of a campaign that ended with the strict limits put in place in April 2016.

Hundreds of protesters from across Spain and Portugal gathered in Madrid to demand the end of the country's nuclear power stations.

The Iberian Antinuclear Movement, made up of 120 organisations from the two countries, demanded that the Spanish government progressively closes all its nuclear plants and commits the economy to renewable energy sources.

Portugal’s gambling authority, the Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos, or 'SRIJ', has issued six online gambling licenses since the market was opened a year ago to international operations. These licences were granted to just four companies and only five sites remain.

The Portuguese market had been considered one of considerable potential as, prior to regulation, it had been targeted by some of the big names in the global gambling industry and there had clearly been a great demand for online offerings.

The government is working to recover some of the money paid to EDP over the last 10 years in the complex ‘Costs for the Maintenance of Contractual Equilibrium’ scheme.

The accounts are not yet complete, but the numbers point to a credit of around €500 million with the government now waiting for a report from the Energy Regulator which is analysing the ‘excessive income’ that EDP has managed to accrue by stiffing its own customers.

Portuguese taxpayers’ bad debts have risen 34% in the past year with over half of the amount attributable to debts of €250,000 or more.

The amount that is considered ‘uncollectable’ at the end of April was €3.92 billion, according to Fernando Rocha Andrade, the head of Tax Affairs.

The 2017 International Boat Show starts on June 10th at Vilamoura Marina, ending on June 18th, where “the most luxurious boats currently on the market” are on display from leading companies.

As well as sleek and largely unaffordable yachts, unless you are in the millionaire class, there is plenty of food and drink choices in the marina’s dock-side restaurants and bars.

The Portuguese Consumer Protection Association (DECO) has issued a warning to anyone renting a holiday home in Portugal, beware of crime, especially on the Internet.

"Every year in the summer, we receive dozens of complaints about holiday home rental scams," said Ingride Pereira, a lawyer for Deco's consumer support office.

According to Pereira, most of the complaints received by Deco are related to the fact that the consumer pay to rent a house that does not exist or is nothing like it appeared in the online listing.