A teenager's death may force Portugal to act on e-scooters

The scooter debate just gained a tragedy. It's Sunday, 27 September. Twenty-nine degrees. Air quality: 57 (Moderate). Here's what you need to know.

🗞️ A TEENAGER'S DEATH REVIVES THE FIGHT OVER E-SCOOTERS

The argument over electric scooters, until this week mostly a matter of cluttered pavements and near-misses, has taken a tragic turn. A teenager has died in an e-scooter accident in Lousada, in the north, and the town's council is now calling for urgent national rules on how the devices are used, who can ride them and where.

That call carries extra weight because of what happened days earlier. The Portuguese Automobile Club submitted a petition of around 20,000 signatures demanding a referendum in Lisbon on whether to keep the city's shared e-scooter scheme, the roughly 6,000 scooters that have drawn complaints since 2019. What was, last week, a debate about mobility and public space now has a death attached to it, and that changes the pressure on lawmakers.

Portugal's rules on e-scooters have long lagged behind their use. Under the Highway Code, standard e-scooters are classed as bicycles, which leaves a real gap: helmet rules and minimum ages are inconsistent, enforcement is thin, and shared-scooter users in particular often have little idea what the law actually requires. Lousada's demand is essentially for the state to close that gap, clear national rules on age, speed, helmets and where scooters can legally go, before more people are hurt.

For readers in Lisbon, this is the backdrop to a fight that is now genuinely live. The petition still has a long road ahead, the Municipal Assembly and then the Constitutional Court both have to approve any referendum, but a death elsewhere in the country adds an urgency a signature drive alone could not. Whether you find the scooters a menace or a genuinely useful way to get around, the direction is clearer than it was a week ago: Portugal is moving toward regulating them properly.

Bottom line: a teenager has died, a town wants national rules, and Lisbon already has 20,000 residents asking for a say. The era of the unregulated e-scooter in Portugal looks to be ending, and it is a death, not a petition, that may finally force the issue.

⚡ QUICK HITS

Some good news: fuel prices are finally set to fall. After weeks of record highs, protests and political pressure, pump prices are forecast to drop from next week, with both petrol and diesel easing as international oil prices soften. Diesel had climbed to as much as €2.23 a litre and petrol above €2, so the relief is real, if modest, and prices remain well above where they sat a year ago. The underlying fight over how heavily Portugal taxes fuel is nowhere near settled, but for anyone who has winced at the pump all month, some relief is coming.

European interior ministers met to push a tougher migration line, and Portugal is already moving the same way. On Saturday, ministers from 17 European countries met in Munich, hosted by Germany, to coordinate on faster deportations, tighter external borders and a proposed "migration crisis mechanism." Nothing binding came out of it, it was a coordination meeting, not a decision, but the direction is clear, and the EU's migration commissioner framed it plainly: "we as Europeans want to decide who can stay, and those who cannot then have to leave." What is striking for readers here is how closely it mirrors Portugal's own recent pivot: Law 62/2026, which took effect this month, expanded detention, sped up removals and closed the old regularise-after-arrival route. The domestic shift and the European mood are moving in step.

What actually is EDP, the name on your electricity bill? New figures from the consultancy OnStrategy name EDP, Energias de Portugal, the country's most valuable brand for another year, worth around €3.2 billion, ahead of Galp and Jerónimo Martins. If you pay for power here, you have seen the name without necessarily knowing the company: EDP is Portugal's largest energy group, once the state electricity monopoly, now privatised and a global player, especially in wind and solar, with operations across Europe and the Americas. It is a big part of why Portugal runs so much of its grid on renewables. So the logo on your monthly bill is not just your supplier, it is one of the largest companies the country has ever produced.

Think about the last thing that got you fired up about your job this year. Odds are it didn't come from a report. It came from someone who does the job, saying what happened when they tried it.

So we've filled a day with people like that. 

Maya Shaff, ŌURA. Leah Walker, Adobe. Georgia Humphries, Stanley 1913. Enara Roy, Halfday. Tyler Vaught, Edelman. Josh Rangel, Ogilvy. Sarah Whittle, ex-Crocs and Duolingo. 

And that's just the first wave of speakers. 

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🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

THE GEORGE (BAIXA)

Ask a Brit what British food actually is and, after a pause, most land on the same answer: the Sunday roast. The George, on Rua do Crucifixo in the Baixa, is where to eat one. Is it the real thing? Not quite, no British pub transplanted to a Lisbon side street ever fully is. But it is close enough to do the job, and on a homesick Sunday, close enough is all you need.

It was Lisbon's first proper British pub, and it commits to the bit: fifteen beers on draught including Guinness and London Pride, dark wood, and big TVs set in gold frames showing whatever match is on. The roast is the reason to come, five meats, Yorkshire puddings, gravy and a proper spread of veg, with a vegetarian option, and it is the dish reviewers rate most consistently. Stick to the roast, the burgers or the fish and chips and you will do well.

Worth knowing before you go: it is a sports pub first, so on a big-match day it is loud, packed and TV-focused rather than a spot for a quiet meal, and the food is hit and miss once you stray past the crowd-pleasers, one or two have found the roast beef on the tough side, which is a fairly Portuguese hazard. A few reviewers have also found the bar area smoky or vapey, so pick a table away from it if that bothers you. Go in with pub expectations rather than restaurant ones and it delivers what a homesick Sunday needs.

→ Find them here ←

Insider tip: book a table, especially if there is a match on, since the room fills fast and service slows to a crawl once the sport crowd arrives, and go for the roast earlier in the day rather than late, when the kitchen is calmer and at its best.

📅 WHAT'S ON

See you tomorrow morning.

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