“No VAT rise this year” said the Minister of Finance in response to a recommendation from Brussels that a 1% rise on the lower two VAT rates would help balance the nation's books this year.

After the European Commission's decision not to punish Portugal and Spain by imposing a fine, Brussels followed up with a suggestion that the 6% and 13% rates of VAT should be hiked by 1% to augument State income this year.

...and so the bed news continues with Moody's reporting today that increased liabilities have heightened the risks for Portugal's weak banks and its government, with the State likely to need to raise more money, further increasing the debt burden from already high levels.

The ratings agency also notes the current uncertainty over Caixa Geral de Depósitos which needs an unquantified capital injection and suggests that the banking sector represents "a continuing risk to the government's own creditworthiness."

The boss of French automaker Renault has seen his salary slashed in the wake of a shareholders revolt.

Renault officials said on Wednesday that CEO Carlos Ghosn’s pay package would be reduced.

Italy is to combat its migrant crisis with an online glimpse of reality.

The €1.5 million “Migrant Aware” project was unveiled on Thursday by the government.

A policeman and two other people have been admitted to hospital suffering from bullet wounds after a shoot out on the Via do Infante motorway at 02:00 on Thursday morning, 28th July.

A gang of suspected drug traffickers travelling from Spain refused to stop at a police road-block and attenpted to drive through it. The incident took place near the Olhão-Moncarapacho exit of the Algarve's motorway.

The curator of a forthcoming exhibition of the works of Miró, still in State ownership after botched attempts to sell them off, Robert Lubar says the set of 85 pieces should stay in Portugal, be kept together and that the pictures deserve to be on permanent display.

The eagerly awaited Miró exhibition to take place at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Oporto, said "there is no doubt that the collection deserves to be exposed permanently in a top end Portuguese cultural institution."

Britain has joined Portugal and Greece as the only three countries in the OECD where real wages fell between 2007 and 2015.

For the UK and Greece both the decline was 10.4%, according to a study by the TUC which was published on Wednesday, leaving both countries as equal bottom of the wage growth league table for the 29 members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Despite internal wranglings at the European Commission, Spain and Portugal both have managed to avoid being fined for missing their agreed budget targets.

The European Commission decided not to fine the two countries because of the poor economic state of each and have postponed until September, but not cancelled, economic sanctions which could see 2017 EU funds curtailed, suspended or scrapped.