In 2015, the population of Portugal was estimated to be around 10.3 million people. The economy of Portugal was a developed social market economy, and it had strong ties with other European countries as well as United States and Canada. It had a high level of foreign investments which contributed to its economic growth. Politically, Portugal was a unitary semi-presidential republic, where both the president and prime minister held executive powers. In 2015, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was President while Pedro Passos Coelho served as Prime Minister. The Portuguese Parliament was composed of two chambers: Assembly of the Republic and Senate. In terms of defence, Portugal had strong military ties with NATO which it joined in 1999 as part of its post-Cold War security policy. Portugal also maintained strong diplomatic relations with its former colonies in Africa and Latin America. See ehealthfacts for Portugal in the year of 2005.
Yearbook 2015
Portugal. According to COUNTRYAAH, Lisbon is the capital of Portugal which is located in Southern Europe. The government introduced rules that allow descendants of Jews who had been expelled from the country hundreds of years ago to claim Portuguese citizenship.
- Also see AbbreviationFinder.org for Portugal country abbreviations, including geography, history, economy and politics.
New figures in February showed some economic recovery in Portugal in 2014, when GDP rose by almost 1%, thanks in large part to increased domestic consumption.
That same month, public servants throughout the country went on strike in protest of austerity policy. That was for President Aníbal Cavaco Silva announced in July that the parliamentary elections will be held on October 4. Opinion polls pointed to the deadly race between the sitting bourgeois government coalition Forward Portugal (PAF) and the left opposition.
The abortion right was reduced, which means that the women themselves must bear the costs and are forced to receive psychological counseling before the intervention. Since 2007, Portuguese women have been entitled to abortion until week ten. Previously, they risked up to three years in prison for abortion.
The pressure on EU countries to receive people on the run increased in September, and Portugal, which previously promised to accept 1,500 asylum seekers, said it was ready to increase its quota.
Despite years of unpopular austerity policy, the sitting coalition PAF, with Passus Coelho at the head, renewed the confidence of the Portuguese voters in the September elections. However, the coalition did not gain a majority in Parliament.
In November, a left-wing alliance defeated the bourgeois minority government by voting against their programs in parliament. Passus Coelho’s second government thus became the most short lived in Portugal after the introduction of democracy in 1974.
At the end of November, Socialist leader António Costa was named prime minister. The message highlighted the political uncertainty that has characterized the country since the election. including salary reductions and extended working hours for public employees.
The head of the country’s tax office resigned after accusations that he was trying to protect information about influential Portuguese from being examined.
Prime Minister Pedro Passus Coelho settled his tax debts after it was discovered that he did not pay his social security contributions during the period 1999-2004 when he worked as a consultant. At the same time, a name gathering was started demanding his departure.
Researchers discovered a previously unknown salamanders in connection with excavations in a dehydrated seabed. It is about a two meter long best with big teeth that bring the thoughts more to crocodiles than frogs. The animal is estimated to have disappeared an estimated 220 million years ago when the lake dried up.
In April, Lisbon’s mayor António Costa resigned in order to stand in the fall parliamentary elections. He was expected to succeed Pedro Passus Coelho as leader of the Socialist Party.
The parents of British Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in the Algarve in 2007, were awarded compensation of the equivalent of SEK 4.7 million for slander by the Portuguese preliminary investigator. The parents were suspected early in the investigation for involvement in the disappearance.
A new heat record for May, 40 degrees even, was struck in Beja in southern Portugal. The previous May record from 2011 was 39.5 degrees.