From 1988 through 2000, Portugal celebrated many historical feats. Notably, the government sponsored commemorations of Portuguese exploration, including the 500th anniversaries of Bartolomeu Dias’s 1488 voyage that rounded the Cape of Good Hope and the founding of Brazil by Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500. In 1998 Lisbon hosted the World’s Fair (Expo ’98), which also marked the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Vasco da Gama in Asia following his discovery of an all-water route from Europe. As the celebrations ended and the 21st century began, many wondered how the new Portugal would conceive of its national tradition and what effect European integration would have on the country’s self-image and national identity. Douglas Lanphier Wheeler Sovereign debt crisis
Support for Sócrates and the Socialists eroded as Portugal weathered the global economic crisis throughout 2007–08, and in the 2009 parliamentary elections the ruling party held onto power but fell short of an absolute majority. Sócrates struggled to preserve his minority government as the Portuguese economy continued to spiral downward throughout 2010. As unemployment topped 10 percent, government efforts to stimulate the economy caused the budget deficit to skyrocket, and Portugal’s sovereign debt rating was downgraded by investment agencies. In response the Socialists passed a series of austerity measures in November 2010 that cut public-sector wages and increased the sales and value-added tax rates. Cavaco Silva was reelected president by a comfortable margin in January 2011, an event that was widely interpreted as an endorsement of stability and continuity, though fewer than half of eligible voters participated in the polling. Portugal’s economic problems persisted into 2011.
In March 2011 Sócrates’s proposal for a new round of spending cuts and tax increases (the fourth such austerity package in a year) was soundly rejected by the parliamentary opposition, prompting the prime minister’s resignation and setting the stage for a snap election. In early May Sócrates’s caretaker government and the EU and the International Monetary Fund came to an agreement in principle for a bailout of some €78 billion (about $116 billion). The agreement was contingent, however, on acceptance by the entire EU, which was less than certain, largely because of the opposition to bailouts expressed by the True Finn party, which had gained prominence in recent elections in Finland. In the June 2011 legislative election, the Socialists were defeated by the Social Democrats, who promptly secured a parliamentary majority by forming a coalition with the centre-right Social Democratic Centre–Popular Party (Centro Democrático Social–Partido Popular; CDS-PP). The new prime minister, Social Democrat leader Pedro Passos Coelho, vowed to implement economic policies that would not only meet the austerity guidelines imposed by the EU and the IMF but exceed them. Portugal saw its credit rating downgraded to junk status in January 2012, and the government responded with increasingly harsh cuts. The announcement of an additional round of tax hikes and public-sector layoffs triggered a wave of protests in October 2012 as demonstrators, facing an unemployment rate that topped 15 percent, expressed their weariness of austerity.
Coelho, Pedro PassosPedro Passos Coelho, leader of Portugal's centre-right Social Democratic Party, waving to supporters during a campaign march in Porto on June 2, 2011. He was victorious in the general election on June 5 and was sworn in as prime minister later that month.Paulo Duarte/AP
Political instability roiled the economy in 2013, with a wave of cabinet resignations pushing government bond yields toward an unsustainable 7 percent. Passos Coelho’s Social Democrats were trounced in local elections in September 2013, a clear sign of voters’ dissatisfaction with the government’s continuing austerity program. Nevertheless, Portugal was able to emerge from recession in 2014, and in May of that year, it successfully fulfilled its obligations under the terms of the 2011 bailout agreement. The economy had barely regained its footing when Portugal’s largest privately held bank, Banco Espírito Santo (BES), imploded in August 2014. Quick action by Portuguese officials restored calm, however; BES was nationalized, and its toxic assets were quarantined.
The governing centre-right coalition won the most seats in the country’s October 2015 parliamentary election, but it fell short of capturing a clear majority. Pres. Aníbal Cavaco Silva invited Passos Coelho to form a minority government, but it soon became apparent that it would not survive a vote of confidence. On November 10, after it had been in power for less than two weeks, Passos Coelho’s government was toppled by an opposition coalition of the centre-left Socialists, the Communists, the antiausterity Left Bloc (allies of the Greek Syriza party), and the Greens. Socialist leader and former Lisbon mayor António Costa was sworn in as prime minister on November 26. The Socialist-led coalition saw its first major setback in January 2016 when Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a founding member of the Social Democrats, was elected president by a resounding margin. Although the office of president was largely ceremonial, Rebelo de Sousa vowed to serve as a moderating influence and pledged to restore stability to the government. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Citation Information
Article Title: Portugal
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 24 August 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/place/Portugal
Access Date: August 25, 2019
Additional Reading General works
Eric Solsten (ed.), Portugaclass="underline" A Country Study, 2nd ed. (1993), contains chapters on the country’s history, society, government and politics, economy, and national security. A helpful but dated survey is Sarah Bradford, Portugal (1973). Walter C. Opello, Jr., Portugaclass="underline" From Monarchy to Pluralist Democracy (1991), is a comprehensive overview of the Portuguese state from its founding through its democratic consolidation. The long-standard Grande enciclopédia Portuguesa e Brasileira (more than 40 volumes originally and with updated additional volumes, 1935–1960, and later supplements from the 1980s and ’90s) is still useful despite its lacunae, errors, and old entries. Land and people
An overview of the country’s features is presented in Clifford Embleton (ed.), Geomorphology of Europe (1984). The development of the cultural landscape, including a summary of the physical landscape, is provided in Jose Mattosé and Francisco Faria Paulino, Portugal, Building up a Country (1992); Orlando Ribeiro, Portugal, o Mediterrâneo e o Atlântico, 7th ed., rev. and enlarged (1998); and Orlando Ribeiro, Hermann Lautensach, and Suzanne Daveau, Geografia de Portugal, 4 vol. (1987–91). Essays on the land use of Santa Maria and Faial in the Azores and of eastern Madeira are found in Four Island Studies (1968). Pictorial representations include Aristides de Amorim Girão, Atlas de Portugal, 2nd ed. (1958); and Victoria Zalacain et al., Atlas de España y Portugal (1982).