Prime minister survives no-confidence vote // Portugal the OECD country where it’s hardest to buy a home

Portuguese news in English on Tuesday, February 25, 2025.

Prime minister survives no-confidence vote over family business

Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has survived a no-confidence vote over a controversy involving a family-owned business but opposition politicians are still calling for answers. It began last weekend when tabloid Correio de Manhã published a story saying the prime minister’s family had a “real estate buying and selling business” it claimed could benefit from recently approved changes to land laws, Expresso reports. (The changes to the lei dos solos are pretty complex but roughly speaking provide a mechanism to turn rural land into urban land under some circumstances). Chega led the criticisms of Montenegro, the Social Democratic Party leader, and threatened a no-confidence motion as other parties and journalists also called for answers during the week.

On Friday, Montenegro comfortably fought off the no-confidence vote brought on Chega, which copped significant criticism from all sides and ended up being the only party to support it, Expresso reports. The party was accused of pursuing the issue to distract from its own problems. Montenegro said he founded Spinumviva in 2021 to cover all his business matters outside of being a lawyer, including a wine and possibly tourist venture on a family farm in the Douro valley, a tech startup linked to the real estate sector and other ventures. He said no dividends had been paid out and calling it a real estate business was missing the point and his properties weren’t affected in any way by the land law changes. “Chega’s problems are not over. They launched this distraction manoeuvre but they’re not over,” he said. However, Montenegro, who transferred his part of the company to his wife after returning to politics, refused to answer questions about who the businesses clients were or what services Spinumviva performed for them. The main opposition Socialist Party and others were left demanding answers. “A prime minister can’t have mystery clients,” PS leader Pedro Nuno Santos said.

But the Socialist leader refused to back a formal inquiry into the issue, Público reports. Nuno Santos said a parliamentary commission of inquiry, which Chega demanded, wasn’t the “appropriate instrument” to answer questions.

Read more about the changes I’ve made to Portugal Weekly here. Thank you to everyone who has already subscribed. If you haven’t, please consider supporting this service.