Madeira News Blog

(16th June). ‘Revalue Emigrants – Strengthen partnerships with Portuguese Abroad’. The Secretary of State for Communities, António Braga, warned yesterday of the need for the entire government to engage in the "revaluation of the Portuguese living abroad", and converting that into "concrete actions". "I speak of a population estimated at around five million people, of businessmen, that already exceed about 120 thousand companies". He believes that there is an urgency to strengthen the visibility and recognition through programs and activities "in the field of economy, culture, and preservation of language". He adds "the programs devoted to stimulating investment in Portugal have to take into account those partners living outside of Portugal". That had never occurred to me before, but it makes a lot of sense in a country of 10 million, to rope in another 5 million emigrants to buy products and materials here through their businesses abroad. Now if Madeira were to take the same approach on it’s own, if successful it would probably be out of crisis in a month, there being so many emigrants, but there is one flaw in that plan … how does one export tourism, our main industry.

’73% Of Portuguese Do Not Trust Government Policies To Combat Corruption – The majority believe that government policies are ineffective in this area’. That’s according to an international agency that specialises in this area, and means in terms of confidence the Portuguese people have the 5th lowest opinion in this area in Europe, just behind Greece and Bulgaria, with Israel leading the corruption belief stakes with 86% of their public vote. The author of the study said "corruption is now a truly global phenomenon". Was it ever any different? I am surprised that only 73% were untrusting, but perhaps the other 27% had nice cars and houses, and worked in government.

‘Permits For Foreigners Limited From Yesterday – Until the end of this year only 3,800 new permits of residents will be issued to foreigners’. I already covered this a few weeks ago, and should mention that this does not include European Union citizens who have a right to live here. The justification for the restriction is of course the economic crisis. That limit itself imposes a maximum number of 89 permits for Madeira for the rest of this year. Last year Portugal allowed 8,600 non-EU foreigners to live and work in Portugal. Associations representing immigrants felt that this was "regrettable", "disturbing", "discriminatory", "protectionist", "immoral" and "incoherent."

The Employers’ Confederation yesterday warned Prime Minister, José Sócrates, that the ‘breath’ of Portuguese companies is coming to an end, and consider that there is an urgent need to strengthen measures to support business and to revive the economy. Also, the President of the Confederation of Tourism of Portugal (CTP), asked the Prime Minister to not reduce the measures to support business in the country, because they think that the crisis is now coming to an end.

‘The Government Will Order Vaccine Against Influenza A – Only 5 to 30% of the population will have access’. That was revealed yesterday by the Health Minister Ana Jorge. "This has to do with the sectors of society that we have to cover" she says, stressing that has not yet been defined the sector of the population that should receive the vaccine. "Today, the Ministry of Health and its team are in discussion to reach a decision within a few days" she said, and was expecting the World Health Organization (WHO) "to give some guidance on who should be vaccinated, with the certainty that there will not be enough vaccine for everyone in the world".  Currently, Portugal has confirmed three cases of patients with influenza A H1N1, or Gripe A as it is known here. Ok, let me try and help start the list off … Health Ministers, families of health ministers, politicians, families of politicians, senior civil servants, families of senior civil servants … that should be the 30% quota reached already.