Overall prices didn't budge in May, yet energy jumped 13.1% over the year. The war and the Strait of Hormuz explain a big chunk of the bill.

By Beatriz Mota

Illustrative · Photo: Markus Winkler / Pexels

Spain's fuel discount was down to 5 cents and due to end in October. The cabinet raised it to 20 cents a litre off petrol and diesel in October, then 13 in November and 6 in December. In Portugal, diesel falls 5 cents this week and still sits above €2.15.

Spain's government approved a third decree on the Middle East crisis on Tuesday, and the part that matters at the pump is simple: the fuel discount, which had already shrunk to 5 cents in September and was due to disappear in October, goes back up to 20 cents a litre in October, then drops to 13 in November and to 6 in December. It covers both petrol and diesel, it works through a cut in the Hydrocarbon Tax (VAT is untouched), and the figures are in the…

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Portugal's Council of Ministers approved compensation of up to 70% of extraordinary fuel costs from October to December for hire-and-reward freight hauliers and public bus operators. Firms that carry their own loads are not covered.

If you haul freight for other companies or run public bus services in Portugal, there is more help on the way. Thursday's Council of Ministers approved a decree-law covering up to 70% of extraordinary fuel costs incurred between October and December. It is meant to close a gap: doubts over the EU's de minimis state-aid rules had left some operators unsure whether they could receive the earlier packages at all.

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Banks, insurers and pension funds have signalled they will join a voluntary pact with the European Commission and the EIB Group to channel long-term institutional capital into Europe's growth-stage tech companies — the mechanism behind the 15-billion-euro target already promised.

Thirteen institutional investors — banks, pension funds and insurance companies — have signalled their intent to join a new voluntary pact launched this week by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group, at the TechEU Equity Summit on 23 September. The goal: channel long-term institutional capital into the venture and growth-capital funds that Europe's tech companies need to scale up without having to go looking for money — and…

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Police counted 380 heavy vehicles, organisers 450 from 117 companies. Five hours along the A42, A41 and A1, no incidents, over a litre of diesel that has risen 63 cents since February.

Hundreds of trucks, most of them from the earthmoving and public-works sector, staged a slow-motion protest on Friday from Lordelo, in Paredes, to the Coimbra Sul junction, along the A42, A41 and A1 motorways. The GNR police counted 380 heavy vehicles during the morning; organisers put it at 450 from 117 companies. The convoy set off at 7:40am and reached Coimbra around 12:30pm, five hours later, without incident, though traffic backed up as it arrived.…

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Consultancy HMR - Health Market Research says Portuguese pharmacies sold more than 3,000 boxes of the weight-loss drug in one day, the third time the one-million-euro mark has been hit since August.

Portugal had already crossed the one-million-euro mark for Mounjaro sales in a single day twice, back in August. It happened again this week. Portuguese pharmacies sold more than 3,000 boxes of the weight-loss drug in one day, according to consultancy HMR - Health Market Research, which tracks sales across more than 2,600 pharmacies and posted the figure on social media. It isn't a one-off. It's the third time since summer. Each box costs between 180 and…

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The VCI restriction started on 15 September and covers goods vehicles over 3,500kg with three or more axles. Hauliers loading or unloading in Porto or Gaia can still use it — but only with the plate registered first.

Since 15 September, heavy goods vehicles have been barred from Porto's Via de Cintura Interna between seven in the morning and nine at night on weekdays. This is not a trial run with a soft launch. In the first 48 hours the PSP logged 27 offences, 22 on day one and five on day two, which suggests the message travelled fast. The ban applies to goods vehicles over 3,500kg gross weight with three or more axles and a height of at least 1.1 metres measured at…

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Warren Buffett, 96, becomes chairman emeritus with immediate effect and stays on the board. His eldest son, a director since 1993, takes the chair, while Greg Abel continues to run the company.

Warren Buffett stepped down on Friday as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the failing textile mill he bought in 1965 and turned into a trillion-dollar conglomerate. He is 96. The change took effect immediately. The board elected his eldest son, Howard G. Buffett, a director since 1993, as chairman, and named the father chairman emeritus. Warren Buffett remains a member of the board. In a letter to shareholders he wrote that Father Time always wins.

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Portugal's securities regulator cleared VAA — Vista Alegre Atlantis to leave Euronext Lisbon on Thursday, with immediate effect. Visabeira Indústria must now buy the shares of holders who did not vote for the delisting, at €1.07 each, within three months.

Vista Alegre shares can no longer be bought or sold on the Lisbon exchange. The CMVM, Portugal's securities regulator, approved the delisting request from VAA — Vista Alegre Atlantis, SGPS on Thursday, and the decision took effect immediately under article 251-F of the securities code. Nobody should be startled by it. The route was opened at the annual meeting on 29 May, where shareholders backed the exit at the request of Visabeira and a block of holders…

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Abanca Mar launched in Portugal on Thursday, lending to fishing, aquaculture, shipbuilding, ports, logistics, maritime tourism and offshore energy. It takes vessels as security and fronts public subsidies that have not yet landed.

A bank announcing that it lends to businesses is not news. A bank building a team that looks only at people who make their living from the sea says something about where it thinks the money is. Abanca launched Abanca Mar in Portugal on Thursday, a segment aimed at companies and sole traders in what gets called the blue economy. The definition is deliberately wide. It takes in fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing and trade, shipbuilding and the yards…

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In her State of the Union address, the Commission president announced a European alliance for climate risk insurance. Around 25% of catastrophe losses in the EU are covered by private insurance, and the rest lands on national budgets.

One line in Wednesday's State of the Union address will get less coverage than the headline items, and it is probably the one that touches household finances in Portugal most directly. Only about a quarter of losses from catastrophes in Europe are covered by private insurance. The rest ends up where it always ends up, on the national budget.

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ERSE is raising the energy tariff by €0.005 per kWh, about 2.7% on the average monthly bill. A couple with no children pay 95 cents more; a couple with two children pay €2.70 more. It covers 779,000 customers, and the regulator is passing on less than a third of the gap it found.

Electricity gets more expensive on 1 October for anyone still on Portugal's regulated tariff. ERSE is lifting the energy component by €0.005 per kWh, which works out at roughly 2.7% on the average monthly bill — and it is the percentage, not the amount, that will travel. The amount deserves an airing, because it changes how the number reads. The regulator's own statement works it through for two household types. A couple with no children, on 3.45 kVA and…

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Applications were due to open on Monday. The environment and energy minister put the delay at three or four weeks, and used a visit to Abrantes to confirm that part of the grid capacity at the old Pego coal plant is going to a technology free zone.

Monday was meant to be the day applications opened for 1,050 megavolt-amperes of electricity grid connection capacity, reserved for projects that include storage. They did not open. Maria da Graça Carvalho, the minister for environment and energy, explained the hold-up during a visit to the Tagusvalley science and technology park in Abrantes, and put it at three or four weeks. The reason is mundane, and in its way encouraging. Sixty-two submissions came…

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Friday's order sets the extraordinary ISP rebate at 97.58 euros per thousand litres of diesel and 65.92 for petrol, in force from Monday. It is not a tax cut — it is the extra VAT the state collects when prices rise, given back.

Fill up this week and you are paying less tax than you were last week, by a wider margin than the headlines suggest. The order signed on Friday by the environment and energy minister and the secretary of state for tax affairs fixes the extraordinary fuel-duty rebate at 97.58 euros per thousand litres of road diesel and 65.92 euros per thousand litres of unleaded petrol. In the unit that shows up on the pump display: 9.8 cents off diesel, 6.6 off petrol.

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The Dutch central bank has just moved close to ten billion dollars of gold out of the US, and Spain, Germany and Italy have started arguing about doing the same. Portugal moved its 3.7 tonnes in 2021 — and the reason it gave was not political.

The Dutch central bank has spent recent months moving gold. Around 60 tonnes physically travelled out of the United States and Canada, half to its own vaults and half to the Bank of England, and the rest was sold in North America and repurchased in London — the reserves change address without the bars being the same bars. Nearly 100 tonnes in total. The governor talked about "readiness" and preparing for "severe crises". Nobody in Amsterdam said the word…

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