Crucial foreign affairs issues

Portugal continues to keep a close eye on foreign affairs all over the world, even though it has greatly downsized and is now just a small country on the sidelines of major power politics.

Starting from the early 16^th century, Portugal controlled an empire that stretched from Asia across Africa to South America. After granting independence to occupied territories in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, it still has close ties with the lusophone nations.

This past couple of  weeks it has been quietly involved with other foreign relationships of even more critical importance globally. As one of the 12 founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1949, Portugal has welcomed Finland as the 31st member. Since Finland showed interest in joining the alliance and formally applied in May last year, Portugal has fully supported it as a way of strengthening NATO and consolidating the European Union. It amounts to a major change in Europe’s security landscape, all the more so as the war in Ukraine shows no sign of abating.

While Portugal is the most distant country from Russia in mainland Europe, Finland shares a 1,340 km border with the Russian Federation. It is roughly four times the size of Portugal with half the population. Finland’s accession to the alliance ended its history of military non-alignment. “A new era has begun,” the Finnish presidency said in a formal statement.

It continued: “Each country maximises its own security. So does Finland. At the same time, NATO membership strengthens our international position and room for manoeuvre. As a partner, we have long participated in NATO activities. In the future, Finland will make a contribution to NATO’s collective deterrence and defence.”

Another Nordic EU nation – Sweden – has applied to join NATO. Its population is almost the same as Portugal’s, yet it has five times the landmass. Nearly all NATO members, including Portugal, would welcome Sweden to the alliance. Hungary and Turkey are the only exceptions and they have been blocking entry. Turkey has taken issue with Sweden’s criticism of Turkey’s Muslim attitude to human rights. Even though Hungary, unlike Turkey, is a member of the EU, it is ruled by the far-right in contrast to Sweden’s government, which is made up of the Moderate Party, the Christian Democrats and the Liberal Party. Hungary’s autocratic president, Viktor Orban, is pro-Putin, contemptuous of EU bureaucrats and firmly opposed to Muslim immigration.

Portugal’s Socialist government wants nothing to do with the far-right, including the Chega party that has been gaining momentum in its own country.

China has become another ever-present danger for the Western world. There have been rising concerns here even though Portugal and China have been on good terms since Portugal’s Age of Discovery. The reasons behind this modern friendship include Portugal’s return of the colony of Macau in 1999 and China’s keenness to expand trade with both Portugal itself and its former colonies. Thousands of wealthy Chinese - more than any other nationality - have invested in luxurious Portuguese property and gained residency here under the Golden Visa scheme.

The concerns now are that China has seriously fallen out with the United States and NATO, while it has close ties with Russia.  President Xi Jinping has recently had cordial talks with Vladimir Putin and, although China may not be directly helping Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, it has certainly not condemned it.

The EU’s President Ursula von der Leyen accompanied France’s President Emmanuel Macron on a visit to Beijing just before Easter to discuss bringing peace to Ukraine as soon as possible. Macron said the West must engage with Beijing to help end the crisis and prevent things spiralling out of control, perhaps even sparking Putin’s threats to go nuclear. That, of course, would push global warming even further into the background.

Brexit has soured relations between the whole of EU bloc, including Portugal despite it sharing the world’s oldest alliance, the Treaty of Windsor, signed in 1386. The EU fallout is crippling Northern Ireland because of a disagreement over the Windsor Framework that replaced Northern Ireland’s devolved government protocol.

At a much happier regional level, Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa, went to Lanzarote recently to meet with his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, and preside over the 34th Luso-Spanish summit. The theme was "Portugal and Spain: Europe in the Atlantic". It was regarded as a landmark in bilateral relations. In addition to the meetings to analyse several areas for cooperation, legal agreements on new lines of joint action were signed.

 

WEDNESDAY BRIEFING

Behind the latest headlines

 

Easter disruptions

The Portuguese Foreign Office has warned that travellers arriving in Portugal in the next few days may face delays due to strike action by immigration officers. The strike will last from this Thursday to next Monday. The Foreign Office suggests travellers should “follow the guidelines provided by your airline or operator”.  Luca News is reporting the immigration service has closed about 90% of its offices nationwide today.

Clean energy high

In the first quarter of this year, renewable sources provided 72% of Portugal’s electricity consumption even though the weather conditions were unfavourable in March. Two months earlier, after heavy rains, plus good wind and solar conditions, renewables provided 88% of the nation’s electricity.

Dams up and down

Reservoirs across the country currently average 81% capacity. Some in northern and central areas are virtually full, but some in the south are low, according to official sources. The situation in the Algarve and Alentejo is all the more serious as a very dry summer is anticipated, due largely to global warming.  

Ukrainian Refugees

Portugal’s Immigration aand Border Service (SEF) has announced that 59,000 temporary protection orders have so far been issued to people who have fled from Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion. The number of arrivals has significantly slowed. By the end of March last year the number of Ukrainians here made up the second largest foreign community. It had risen from 27, 200 to 52,00 in just one month.  

International art fair

A total of 84 galleries from 22 countries wiil be taking part in this year’s international contemporary art fair in Lisbon from 25 to 28 May. It will include works from 26 Portuguese galleries.

Julia is not Madeleine

The DNA test results on Julia Wendell have shown that the 21-year-old Polish woman is not Madeleine McCann as she claimed. Julia has returned to her father in Poland from California where she was taken by an American private investigator, Dra Fia Johannson, who also describes herself as a psychic medium.

Feliz Páscoa  - Happy Easter!

The answer is blowin' in the wind

What is the best way forward to reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions in the battle to limit global warming? Now you know the answer - well, one of the most important answers.

Portugal is using wind turbines to eliminate fossil fuels and create electricity to a greater extent than any other efficient method, such as solar or hydro.

Wind technology has a very long history. Windmills were busy grinding wheat in the Mediterranean region many centuries ago. By the mid-1800s to mid-1900s millions of small windmills were used to pump water in the United States. The first large wind machine to generate electricity was installed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1888. Further development of wind generators in the USA was inspired by the design of airplane propellers and monoplane wings. Subsequent efforts in Denmark, France, Germany and the UK showed that large-scale wind turbines could work well to produce energy. The first really large-scale installations came about in California where over 16,000 machines, ranging from 20 to 350 kW (a total of 1.7 GW), were opened between 1981 and 1990. This was a result of incentives given by the USA government.

In northern Europe, wind farm installations increased steadily through the 80s and the 90s with the higher cost of electricity and the excellent available wind resources leading to the creation of a small but stable market. The last twenty years have brought wind energy to the forefront in Europe and all over the world.

Portugal was a relatively late starter, but in 2001 the government launched a programme aimed at promoting a consistent, integrated approach to energy supply and demand. It established its first onshore wind farm in 2016 and since then has rushed ahead with gale-force enthusiasm. By 2020 wind power was a major source of electricity generated in this country. By the end of 2021, it had 265 wind farms and a total of 2,836 turbines meeting 26% of the country’s energy needs.

A pioneering offshore wind farm – WindFloat Atlantic, the world’s first semi-submersable floating wind farm (pictured here) - started adding electricity to the grid in 2020. New high- capacity offshore projects will be commencing this year. 

The government aims to cover 80% of the country’s electricity consumption with renewables by 2030 and to be climate neutral by 2050.

Five years ago the government committed to close all of the country's coal producing facilities by the end of this decade, making it almost completely reliant on renewable energy. Four years ago coal still provided 40% of Portugal's electricity. The two last coal power plants in the country closed in 2021, nearly ten years earlier than initially forecast. The first plant had been responsible for 12% of all greenhouse emissions in Portugal. Its closure meant the biggest decrease in polluting emissions in the country's history. The second plant was the only coal-fired facility functioning until 19 November 2021 when it too was shut down.

It was estimated that around 20,000 jobs would be created until 2030 in the solar-photovoltaic industry alone, with EDP having announced an investment of €24 billion in the renewable industry until 2026, most of it directed at wind, solar and green hydrogen production.

Back in 2017, a drought that severely affected the production of hydro electricity reduced the total from all renewables from 55.5% the previous year to 41.8%. Wind power that year accounted for 21.6% of the total, hydro 5.1%, solar just over 1% and geothermal 0.4%. Wave power made up 24% of the energy produced in the Azores.

While all other renewables are very important, wind remains the major source of electricity in Portugal. Its evolution does indeed provide an answer to this country’s commitment to avoiding a global warming catastrophe.

 

 

WEDNESDAY BRIEFING

Behind the headlines this week

Zero VAT on foodstuffs

In the face of rising inflation and the cost of living, the government is to introduce a list of products that will have zero value added tax. The foods include various fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meats and eggs. The arrangement will run from the end of Easter until November. The standard VAT rate in Portugal is 23%, though only 6% on some foods  and 13% on pharmaceuticals.

Islamic centre killing

Two women were killed and others injured by a man wielding a large knife at the Islamic centre in Lisbon on Tuesday. Police shot and wounded the man when he failed to put down the knife. Now in custody, the attacker is thought to be a refugee from Afghanistan who was receiving help from the Islamic community.

Banking looks stable

The outlook for the Portuguese banking sector is looking stable for the next 12 to 18 months, according to the Moody’s Investors Service. It considers the outlook “globally resilient” in the contest of of the current restrictive monetary policy.

Airlines back on track

Airlines for Europe (A4E) are optimistic that they will achieve pre-COVID levels on the number of flights this summer. This is despite 350 flights and 62,500 passengers being hit by French air traffic strikes and other recent airline staff disputes.

More tourism workers

The ministry of the economy wants to increase the number of people working in the tourism sector by 20%. In a plan announced on Monday, 20 different measures are envisaged, including modernising the network of hotel schools. Improvements in the tourism sector are seen as crucial because it is of such importance to the national economy.

Tanks sent to Ukraine

Three Leopard 2A6 tanks donated by the Portuguese government have arrived in Ukraine.

Germany, Poland, Finland and Spain have also sent Leopard battle tanks to help Ukraine defend its sovereignty against Russia.

Madeleine drama

The young woman who claims she is Madeleine McCann is now demanding medical records from a Polish doctor she claims drugged her with pills as a child.  The Polish parents of Julia Wendell, also known as Jula Faustyna, say she has a mental problem. Dr Fia Johansson, the American private investigator supporting Julia in California, says a Polish lawyer has been contacted and there may be a lawsuit to get to the truth. DNA test results are said to be “imminent”. Meanwhile, it has been reported that the London Metropolitan’s Police’s Operation Grange is to receive more funding from the British home office.

Global warming should be No. 1

Former Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres has repeated yet again that the number one priority for humanity should be doing everything possible to limit global warming, but clearly this is not happening.

As Secretary-General of the United Nations, Guterres (pictured below) has overseen five years of research by the world’s leading climate science unit, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which produced its final report last week. The study concluded that by the middle of the next decade, it may be too late to avoid a cycle of climate-induced disasters that dwarf what’s already happening across the globe.

The chance of evading the most severe impacts of burning fossil fuels is almost out of reach unless radical changes are made – and made immediately, the study warns.

Changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts and tropical cyclones are strengthening all the time.

Guterres commented: “This report is a clarion call to massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe. In short, our world needs climate action on all fronts.”

A global conference on water, the first such specialist conference in a generation, was also held by the UN last week. It sought to formulate resolutions to increasing droughts and dwindling amounts of unpolluted drinking water caused by global warming. Among the many delegates, only five world leaders showed up.

As we have reported here before, global warming is the biggest worry for young people in Portugal. A survey showed that three-quarters of those surveyed thought the future “frightening” and 56% thought humanity was doomed. But climate change is not a priority for Portuguese school teachers just now. Teachers have been striking all over the country, leaving classes unattended, while demanding better pay

Money is the number one priority for many people everywhere and it often extends far beyond the understandable desire for comfortable living standards in today’s world. Greed abounds. So does self-importance and violent hatred.

As the UN’s report on its five-year study was being published, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, presidents of two of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gasses were meeting to discuss closer cooperation in the war in Ukraine and a possible much bigger war against the West. There were more veiled threats of a nuclear conflict. Global warming and an almighty final conflagration did not seem to be of much interest to these self-styled emperors.

In the United States, the world’s biggest greenhouse gas polluter, the chief concerns are bank insecurity, inflation, interest rates and the cost of living. It’s the same in the United Kingdom. Both are not only increasing their use of fossil fuels, but opening new mines to extract more.

Headlines in the American media have also centred far less on global warming than on the hopes of Donald Trump and his millions of loyal supporters that he will be voted for another term as US president, even though he is famously in denial and has described scientific global warming evidence as “false news.”

France is being virtually brought to a standstill by increasingly violent protests, not against inaction against global warming, but the government raising the retirement age by a couple of years to 64. Bad enough in Portugal you may say, the retirement age has come down from 66 and 7 months last year to 66 and 4 months this year.

Pensioners are, of course, the old brigade and may not last long enough to witness total disaster as humanity heads down the road to a final calamity. However, the survey mentioned above showed that many people between the ages of 16 and 25 in a number of countries as well as Portugal feel betrayed, ignored and abandoned by their elders, especially politicians, who have failed to properly respond to climate change.

At 73 years-of-age, António Guterres is an outstanding exception. He is doing his very best to help the young and all other forms of life on the planet to cope in the decades ahead.

In my view we should do the same.

 

WEDNESDAY BRIEFING

 Behind this week’s headlines

 

Unemployment low

The number of unemployed people in Portugal in February had fallen by 8.3% from February 2022. This was “the second lowest ever” for the month, the ministry of labour, solidarity and social security said on Monday.

 

Public protesting

As in many cities across the world, mass street demonstrations have been continuing in Lisbon.  Among other things, thousands of Portuguese protestors are demanding higher wages and a cap on soaring food prices.  Official statistics show that more than 50% of workers earned less than €1,000 ($1,067) per month last year. Families are struggling to make ends meet in one of Western Europe’s poorest countries.

 

Teachers seek EC help

Teachers’ unions are asking the European Commission to help solve their dispute with the government over pay, promotions and careers. The unions are discussing the dispute in the European Commission’s Lisbon office today.

 

UK and US airlines

EasyJet cabin staff in Portugal are planning a three-day strike, 1 to 3 in April. Like other strikers, they are demanding higher pay and better working conditions.

Meanwhile, the American airline, Delta, has announced it’s going to resume flights between Lisbon and Boston, Massachusetts, from 9 May to 2t October.  

 

Drug smuggling seizures

The national maritime authority (AMN) has so far sized more drugs in the first three months of this year than in the whole of 2022. More than 20 tonnes have been seized and 31 suspected traffickers arrested.

 

Wildfire fighters

A group of German fire-fighters have come to the city of Vila Real in the north of Portugal to exchange information and experiences with Portuguese fire-fighters on tactics to be used to cope with forest wildfires - a relative new problem in Germany - as well as in urban areas.   

 

Rugby Union final

While most international rugby union fans would have been focused more on Ireland’s Grand Slam win over England in the Six Nations Championship last weekend, Portugal finished second in the European Cup final after being defeated by Georgia 38-11.

 

 

 

 

 

Madeleine: mystery and madness

There have been a great many reported sightings of Madeleine McCann since her disappearance in 2007, but the claim by a young woman that she is probably Madeleine is getting enormous media coverage worldwide and prompting yet more bizarre speculation.

The latest claim could be proven in the coming days or weeks, though it seems more likely it will be dismissed as a load of nonsense.

Julia Faustyna, also known as Julia Wendell or Wandelt, has reportedly submitted three different DNA samples for forensic examination in the United States where she is being looked after within the family of a woman called Dr Fia Johansson.

Having lived with parents in Poland for most if not all of her life, Julia is said to be very happy to have left because of internet death threats and parents who took insufficient care of her.

Several key questions come to mind while we await the outcome of the DNA tests:

Is Julia of sound mind?

Who is Dr Johansson?

What is known about Julia’s Polish parents?

What do Kate and Gerry McCann think of all this?

Julia believes she could be Madeleine largely because of a rare misshaped pupil in her right eye. Madeleine had a similar marking. Eye specialists say only one in 10,000 people have this coloboma condition. The chances of someone having exactly the same disorder are said to be only seven in one million. While Julia took to the internet to make her claim, it is obvious she was seeking attention. This she certainly got and her internet messages and images went viral.

Since then facial recognition software has apparently given Julia’s internet images a “90% verdict” against her claim.

If Julia is 21-years of age, as her Polish parents and tabloids across the world are reporting, she is not Madeleine McCann. Madeleine would now be 19. A recent doubt is whether Julia has long to live. There are fears she may have life-threatening leukemia.

The woman who took Julia to the United States is being described as a private investigator and a self-confessed psychic medium. Many people with mental or physical problems seek help from psychics as a last resort if normal treatment is not healing them.

On the other hand, rational people reject physics as illogical proponents of the supernatural who dispatch delusions or deliberate untruths. Like Julia, Dr Johansson has gained a vast amount of fame and critics suggest that this may be her main objective in looking after Julia.

Dr Johansson has advised police in California of the death threats and the bounty placed on Julia’s head, possibly by sex traffickers. The police are apparently now examining these vile messages sent to Julia via Instagram. 

The parents of Julia in Poland are in a hopeless situation. Julia has said that neither they nor her siblings treated her properly. While being accused of receiving Julia from sex traffickers, the Polish couple are said to have refused to supply any DNA evidence to prove otherwise. So when was Julia born and to whom? Surely it would be possible to at least find a birth certificate or obtain some sort of official documentation to show the facts about her early life? Dr Johansson has been quoted as saying she tried but was unable to find any records of Julia’s first five years.

Kate and Gerry McCann have understandable remained silent on all this. They have always been adamant that Madeleine was abducted from their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz. They are thought to remain quietly in contact with the London Metropolitan Police who have been investigating the abduction theory for many years.

A number of independent researchers, as well as many members of the general public, particularly in Portugal, still believe that circumstantial evidence strongly suggests a cover-up and that Kate and Gerry McCann know how and when she died.

But if Madeleine really was abducted and she is now Julia, her real parents in the UK will no doubt be desperately looking forward to being reunited with her as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, as an indication of the grotesque depths this mystery has sunk to, an “exclusive” report in the Daily Star in the UK has said that a living Nostradamus fears “black magic” was at play in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

A completely different angle to the overall Madeleine story appeared in a recent edition of a much more reliable newspaper, The Guardian, in which Ben Leyland revealed the mental problems of his mother, Brenda, who committed suicide in 2014, two days after the airing of a Sky News report about the abusive tweets she had directed at Kate and Gerry McCann.     

For now, the very strange and very sad Madeleine McCann saga continues.