Will Lisbon’s housing camps return this weekend?

Lisbon’s housing protesters march again tomorrow, in weather running up to five degrees above normal for late October. It’s Friday, 30 October. Twenty-six degrees. Air quality: 20 to 35 (Good). Here’s what you need to know.

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THE PARTIES SAY THEY’LL DO MORE ON HOUSING. THE PROTESTERS ARE STILL MARCHING

Lisbon’s housing protesters will be back on the streets on Saturday. At an open assembly on Wednesday night, the Acampada Lisboa, or Lisbon Camp, movement voted by more than 230 to 95 for a march from Marquês de Pombal to Rossio, ending with a rally in the square, rather than a rally alone. They’ll vote again on the day on whether to pitch tents. The last time they did, police ordered the tents down by 12:30am, and the clearance that followed ended in baton charges.

In Porto, where the camps began on 10 October, protesters have voted to set up a new camp and launch a newspaper about people living without housing. The movement is also lining up behind the CGTP, the country’s biggest trade union confederation, which is pushing for an Iberian general strike on 11 November. Porto’s mayor, Pedro Duarte, says the city will raise IMI, the municipal property tax, tenfold on empty homes in the historic centre, to push owners to put them back on the market.

On Thursday, President António José Seguro saw the parties one by one at Belém Palace, ahead of Monday’s Council of State on social cohesion. The four biggest parties came out sounding ready to talk. Leonor Beleza, for the governing Social Democrats, said her party was “just as keen” as the president to do more. Chega wants a firm agreement on housing and says it’s prepared to bargain with the government on the rent reform, and the Liberal Initiative said it was open to dialogue. The Socialist leader, José Luís Carneiro, called on the government to show more humility and withdraw the rental reform bill.

Further left, the mood was gloomier. Livre, the green-left party, said it would only talk if the government dropped what it calls the “evictions law”, and the Communist leader, Paulo Raimundo, said social cohesion was impossible with housing in its current state, adding that the president should have spoken sooner.

Bottom line: The big parties now say they’ll work together on housing, but the rent law that set off the protests is still on the table, and Saturday’s vote on tents will show whether the streets stay calm.

⚡ QUICK HITS

PSP and GNR officers marched through Lisbon on Thursday evening to demand higher pay. The main unions of the PSP, the Public Security Police, and the GNR, the National Republican Guard, walked from Largo do Carmo to near the prime minister’s residence in São Bento, the last in a run of protests around the country since September. They say the review of allowances, career changes and pay rises promised in a 2024 deal with the government still haven’t happened, and the GNR association says guards lose more than €200 a month because of outdated pay rules. Talks continue, with a meeting with the interior minister due in November. The union leaders said they sympathise with the housing protesters but are keeping the two causes separate.

The GNR has warned of a WhatsApp scam asking people to vote for a friend’s daughter in a competition. The message includes a link to a site that may ask for a verification code or for you to scan a QR code. The GNR’s advice is not to open the link at all and to check with the friend that the message is genuine. If you’ve already clicked, never hand over any code, as that can give scammers control of your WhatsApp account. It’s not the first WhatsApp scam to hit Portugal. In the “Hi Mum, Hi Dad” scam, fraudsters posed as children with a new number and asked their parents for money. On 7 October, a court in Leiria ordered a 44-year-old man behind it to pay €58,628.58 to the state and almost €13,000 to his victims.

TAP has launched the first non-stop flights between Portugal and Orlando. The new Lisbon route runs three times a week, on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, taking just under ten hours out and eight back. From 2 November, flights leave Lisbon at 2:20pm and land in Orlando at 7:10pm local time. Orlando is TAP’s ninth US destination. Separately, a TAP flight from Lisbon to Stockholm diverted to Nantes on Tuesday after an e-cigarette battery reportedly overheated and filled the cabin with smoke. It landed safely, nobody was hurt, and the flight carried on about 90 minutes late.

UMC Clinic - Trick or Treatment?

Boo. Halloween is tomorrow, and anyone who has moved to Portugal has a few horror stories of their own. Somewhere between finding a flat, battling the paperwork and getting your documents in order, there’s your health.

You may not speak enough Portuguese to describe your symptoms, and getting an appointment means a phone call in Portuguese. Now that’s scary.

Luckily, UMC has a wooden stake easy booking, same-day appointments and doctors who speak English and a range of other languages. The clinic works with most international insurers, and you don’t need a referral or an SNS number, the national health service number, to be seen.

UMC also asked expats what scares them most about moving abroad, and shared the answers on its Instagram.

→ See what expats fear most ←

And this Halloween, your Lisbon Letter code gets a twin. From 30 October to 6 November, use LisbonLetter when you book a visit or an online consultation to get 20% off. Then show UMC that you follow @umcportugal on Instagram, and you’ll get a second code for another 20% off your next appointment.

So, trick or treatment?

We only partner with businesses we think you’ll be interested in. Whether you book yourself or pass it on to someone who needs a doctor, every click and share helps keep this newsletter free every morning.

🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

IMPRENSA (PRÍNCIPE REAL)

Imprensa sits on Rua da Imprensa Nacional, the street named after Portugal’s old national printing press, in a former print shop, and it makes the most of the address. The cocktails are named after typefaces, the décor is full of printing-press touches, and the bar has kept an Olivetti typewriter for guests to leave messages. The lights are kept low and the mood is unhurried. If a bar built around typefaces sounds niche, it has made SheerLuxe’s list of Lisbon’s best places to drink and easyJet’s guide to the city’s cosiest cocktail bars.

Five bartenders opened it in 2020, setting out to be one of Lisbon’s first oyster bars, and it did well enough to add a second branch in the Baixa two years later. Oysters come in fresh from a supplier in Setúbal, and the short food list stays close to the sea, with ceviche and a shrimp brioche that The Infatuation recommends if oysters aren’t your thing. There’s natural wine and craft beer too.

It’s a bar with snacks rather than a place for dinner, so eat first if you’re hungry. Recent listings have it open every day from 6pm to 2am, and it’s a short walk from Rato metro, in the streets between Príncipe Real and São Bento.

→ Find them here ←

Insider tip: if the Olivetti is still by the bar, leave a line before you go.

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See you tomorrow morning.

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