Poelzl V. Culture Shock! Portugal: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette

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CultureShock! Portugal

Portugal’s ﬁ rst attempt at democratic rule was a difﬁ cult

and short-lived endeavour. The main agenda of the new

government was to reduce the inﬂ uence of the monarchists

and the Church—religious orders were expelled and their

property conﬁ scated, and religious instruction at schools

was prohibited.

World War I

During World War I, Portugal sided with its long- time ally Great

Britain, and Portuguese troops fought against Germany in Africa as

well as in Flanders. Several military coups remained unsuccessful

at providing internal stability and in 1919, a civil war broke out to

restore the monarchy, although the republican forces managed to

stay in control.

Military Rule and the Estado Novo

The instability of Portugal’s republican system continued until

a successful military coup put an end to the First Republic in

1926. The government that followed was to become Europe’s

longest dictatorship, which only ended in 1974. To resolve

the country’s economic problems, military general Carmona

appointed economics professor António de Oliveira Salazar

as ﬁ nance minister in 1928. Under Salazar’s programme of

ﬁ scal austerity, Portugal’s ﬁ nances were soon straightened

out, leaving room for investments in infrastructure and social

services. In 1932, Salazar was nominated prime minister, a

post he held until 1968. The new authoritarian political order

became known as the Estado Novo (New State). Its main allies

were large landowners, the commercial elite, industrialists

and the Catholic Church, who all beneﬁ tted greatly from

the new authoritarian government which granted them

generous privileges.

During World War II, Portugal remained ofﬁ cially neutral,

while secretly supporting the Allies. After the end of World

War II, Portugal’s main challenge were its overseas

possessions. In 1961, Indian troops annexed Goa, Diu and

Daman, the old Portuguese trading ports in India. Starting in

the early 1960s, independence movements in Africa began

to challenge the Portuguese colonial government. Salazar,

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A Look at the Land

however, vowed that Portugal would uphold its overseas

empire and defend Christianity and Western civilisation, even

if it meant that the Portuguese would be ‘orgulhosamente sós’

(‘proudly alone’) in this task. He increased military expenses

and sent large numbers of troops to Africa to maintain control

of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea.

The Revolution of the Carnations

When Salazar suffered a stroke in 1968, Marcelo Caetano, a

long- time follower, became prime minister. His goal was to

carry on Salazar’s Estado Novo with minor changes, but he

had to face an increasingly dissatisﬁ ed population and the

repercussions of the unpopular war in the African colonies.

There was also a growing number of army ofﬁ cers who

opposed the colonial wars in Africa and preferred a change

of regime. On 25 April 1974, a group of ofﬁ cers who called

themselves the Movimento das Forças Armadas, or MFA, led

a revolt to overthrow the Caetano government. The uprising

(which took place during the week that red carnations sprung

up in ﬂ ower shops) originally only included a small segment

of the military, but more and more members of the army and

navy pledged support for the MFA and the remaining troops

loyal to Caetano were unwilling to use force. Under siege

by the rebellious army and faced with dwindling support,

Caetano abdicated and went into exile.

The MFA quickly appointed General Spínola, an opponent

of the colonial war, as interim president to lead the transition

to a democratically elected government. A constituent

assembly was voted for in general elections in the spring

of 1975, and a new constitution was drafted in 1976. The

constitution nationalised banking, insurance, transportation,

heavy industry and energy, and divided large unproductive

estates in southern Portugal into agricultural cooperatives.

Soon after the revolution, Portugal began to negotiate terms

for the independence of its colonies, which was granted by

1975. As a result of Portugal’s withdrawal from Africa, Angola

fell into a decade-long civil war, Mozambique was taken

over by a Marxist-Leninist government, and East Timor was

annexed by Indonesia. In response to the political instability

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CultureShock! Portugal

of Portugal’s former colonies, over half a million Portuguese

settlers ﬂ ed and returned to Portugal.

With opposing political factions unwilling to compromise,

the political climate in Portugal continued to be highly

unstable. After a series of minority governments, a coalition

government formed by socialist prime minister Mário Soares

in 1982 gained enough support to implement important

programmes and move toward membership in the European

Community (EC), which is now known as the European

Union (EU).

THE NEW PORTUGAL

In 1986, Portugal became a member of the EC—an important

milestone in Portugal’s new orientation toward Europe. In

the same year, Mário Soares became Portugal’s ﬁ rst civilian

president since the First Republic. Aníbal Cavaco Silva and his

conservative Social Democratic Party governed the country

from 1985 to1995. Under his centre-right government,

several amendments were made to the constitution. As a

result, nationalised industries were again privatised, and the

land expropriated under the agrarian reform was returned

to its original owners. After a decade of conservative rule,

the Socialist Party returned to power with António Guterres

as prime minister in 1995 and Jorge Sampaio as president

in 1996. After losing in vital regional elections, Guterres

called for new general elections in March of 2002. The Social

Democratic Party emerged as the winning party, and Prime

Minister Durão Barroso formed a coalition government with

the small right-wing Partido Popular, the People’s Party.

In 2005, the Socialist party won the elections, against a

background of increasing economic problems. José Socrates

became prime minister, and for the ﬁ rst time since the end of

the dictatorship in 1974, the Socialist party gained absolute

majority in parliament.

THE ECONOMY

Portugal entered the EC in 1986 as Western Europe’s poorest

nation. But since then, Portugal has made large strides to

close this development gap. In the past four decades, the

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A Look at the Land

country has changed from a largely agricultural country into

a modern diversiﬁ ed economy with a moderately developed

industry and a strong service sector. It sustained economic

growth of about 4.5 per cent per year from 1986 to 2000. This

was achieved largely with the help of substantial structural

funds from its European partners. However, its Gross

Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is still behind leading

EU economies. In recent years, economic growth has been

slow and the government has had difﬁ culty in controlling the

budget deﬁ cit, which is a requirement for countries sharing

Europe’s common currency, the euro (€).

Economic Sectors

The service sector, which includes commerce, transport,

communications, tourism and ﬁ nancial services, is Portugal’s

most dynamic economic sector. It accounts for 72 per cent

of the GDP and employs 56 per cent of Portugal’s work force.

Tourism has become an increasingly important economic

sector in Portugal, with about 12 million foreign tourists every

year, more than its total resident population.

Agriculture, together with forestry and ﬁ shing, accounts

for 4 per cent of Portugal’s GDP and employs 12 per cent of

The Douro region, where the grapes for port wine are grown.

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CultureShock! Portugal

the work force. The most important agricultural products are

wheat, corn, potatoes, grapes, wine, olives, wool, meat, dairy

products, vegetables and fruit. Portugal is one of the world’s

largest producers of olive oil and wine, with port wine as the

leading variety. Portugal’s agriculture remains in urgent need

of reforms and modernisation. The productivity is low, and

grain and other foods need to be imported.

Although the industrial sector has grown signiﬁ cantly in the

past decades, Portugal remains a moderately industrialised

country. Portugal’s main industrial centres are all located

along or near the coast. Heavy industry (steel, petrochemicals,

machinery) is localised around Lisbon, Setúbal and Sines,

and light industry (light manufacturing, textiles, shoes) is

predominant in Porto, Braga, Aveiro and several inland

cities. The most important industries are still the traditional

A ﬁ shing boat at harbour in the Algarve. Four per cent of the country’s GDP

comes from ﬁ shing and forestry.

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A Look at the Land

sectors, such as textiles, shoes, ceramics, canned ﬁ sh and

paper products. In addition to these main industrial sectors,

Portugal still has a vital cottage industry based on traditional

handicrafts. The most important natural resources are mining

(tungsten, iron ore, copper, tin, uranium) and forestry. Cork

from Portugal accounts for about 60 per cent of the world’s

entire production.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL SYSTEM

Portugal is today a parliamentary democracy. Lisbon is the

capital and the country’s largest city. Portugal is divided

into 18 districts and two autonomous provinces. The

districts are Aveiro, Beja, Braga, Bragança, Castelo Branco,

Coimbra, Evora, Faro, Guarda, Leiria, Lisboa, Portalegre,

Porto, Santarém, Setúbal, Viana do Castelo, Vila Real and

Viseu. The islands of the Azores and Madeira are both

autonomous regions with a higher degree of self-governance

than the districts. Every municipality and parish within a

district elects its own representatives and governing body.

Portugal’s constitution is today ﬁ rmly based on a capitalistic

and democratic society.

Executive Branch

The president of the republic is the chief of state, and

the prime minister is the head of the government. Aníbal

Cavaco Silva of the Social-Democratic Party is the president

until 2011, and José Sócrates de Carvalho Pinto de Sousa of

the Socialist Party is the prime minister until the elections

in 2009.

Legislative Branch

The legislative branch consists of the unicameral Assembleia

da República (Assembly of the Republic), which consists

of 230 seats. The members are elected by popular vote in

general elections every four years.

Judicial Branch

The Tribunal Constitucional (Constitutional Court) examines

the constitutionality of a legislation. The 13 judges are

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CultureShock! Portugal

appointed for life by the Assembly of the Republic. The

Supremo Tribunal de Justiça (Supreme Court of Justice) is the

highest court of law for civil and criminal cases with several

subordinate courts. There is also a Supreme Administrative

Court, which investigates the administrative conduct of

government institutions.

Voting System and Political Parties

All citizens 18 years of age or older are entitled to vote. The

president is elected by popular vote for a ﬁ ve-year term.

After legislative elections, the president appoints the prime

minister, which is the candidate from the party with the

most votes.

There are six parties that generally compete for seats in

the Assembleia da República. They are the Partido Socialista

(Socialist Party), the centre-right Partido Social Democrata

(Social Democratic Party), the Partido Comunista de Portugal

(Communist Party), the right-wing Partido Popular (People’s

Party), the Bloco de Esquerda (Left Block) and the Partido

Ecologista ‘Os Verdes’ (Green Party).

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‘A Grande e decisive arma é a ignorância. É bom [...]

que eles nada saibam, nem ler, nem escrever, nem contar,

nem pensar, que considerem e aceitem que o mundo não

pode ser mudado, que este mundo é o único possível.’

(The great and decisive weapon is ignorance.

It is good [...] that they don’t know anything, not read,

write, count, or think, and that they consider and

accept that the world cannot be changed,

that this world is the only one possible.)

— José Saramago,

Levantado do Chão,

1980

PORTUGUESE

REALITIES

CHAPTER 3

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CultureShock! Portugal

THROUGHOUT PORTUGAL’S HISTORY, the people have accepted the

status quo as a God-given order. Every person had its due

place in society and social mobility was not an option or

was difﬁ cult to achieve. This notion changed little under the

anticlerical First Republic and was further expanded under

Salazar’s dictatorship.

The social structure of the Estado Novo was based on

an elitist and hierarchical division of Portuguese society. A

very small and well-established oligarchy ruled the country,

while almost three-quarters of the population were lower

class workers and peasants, who suffered much hardship

and poverty. It was not until after the 1974 revolution that

major changes began to take place for the majority of the

Portuguese population. For the ﬁ rst time, the government

introduced measures to ﬁ ght illiteracy and provide health

and welfare beneﬁ ts to the population, as well as raise

salaries signiﬁ cantly.

Since the end of the dictatorship, Portugal has made

signiﬁ cant steps toward becoming a democratic and pluralistic

society. As the consolidation of Portugal’s democracy went

underway, the working class was able to improve its

economic situation, and the middle class began to grow and

gain inﬂ uence in society. Upward mobility is now no longer an

exception, mostly because of universal access to education.

As a result, the old class distinctions have become blurred and

are no longer as relevant. Portugal’s young generation born

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Portuguese Realities

after the revolution enjoys the most egalitarian conditions

that have ever existed in their country.

STILL THE POOR HOUSE OF EUROPE?

Throughout the 20th century, Portugal was Western Europe’s

poorest country. It had the least developed industry, a

small service sector and a backward agriculture based on

small farms and large unproductive estates. Even though

Portugal’s economic growth was among the highest in

Europe after joining the EC in 1986, the country is still

Western Europe’s least developed nation. Undoubtedly,

the gap between the EU’s wealthier countries and Portugal

is narrowing, but the standard of living in Portugal is still

far below that of other EU countries. Portugal also has the

highest poverty rate in the EU. About 21 per cent of the

population live in low-income households, compared to the

EU average of 15 per cent. Although nobody in Portugal

suffers from hunger, poverty among old people and the

rural population is common.

Struggling to Get By

Although Portugal has a social welfare system, the beneﬁ ts

are low and provide minimal financial assistance. The

government offers monthly family allowances for children,

disability pensions, and social welfare assistance to its needy

population, but these subsidies are not enough to get by.

Pensions are also low, and workers who have made social

security contributions for thirty years could ﬁ nd themselves

on a very small pension with which they can barely make

ends meet. As a result of the low pensions, Portugal has the

highest percentage in the EU of people of retirement age

who still work.

Although the cost of living is lower than in most other

EU countries, Portugal has the lowest salary level in the EU.

The minimum wage is also the lowest in Western Europe,

with € 450 per month (in 2009). The unemployment rate has

also been rising in recent years due to Portugal’s economic

slowdown, which has affected young people and those in

rural areas.

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