The Minister of Infrastructure announced that the Government will shortly take a position on the new Mobility Social Allowance, which conditions eligibility on beneficiaries having no outstanding debts to tax authorities or Social Security. The proposed regulation affects residents of Madeira and the Azores and has drawn objections from the autonomous regions, raising questions about regional equity, implementation logistics and the interaction between social support and debt enforcement.

The Government and the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) have agreed to establish a commission and create a fund of around €500 million to decentralise roughly 4,000 km of state roads to municipal management. The agreement, announced by ANMP vice-president Ana Abrunhosa, follows a series of ministerial meetings that also covered unclaimed state property, port management and education. The commission and fund are intended to oversee and finance the transfer, shifting responsibility for maintenance and local oversight to municipal councils and addressing the fiscal and administrative implications of the reallocation.

PS leader José Luís Carneiro condemned Government claims that Portugal has 'open borders' as a 'lie told a thousand times', arguing the country never had open borders, rejecting any link between immigration and insecurity, and challenging the Government to a serious debate on immigration policy.

The National Association of Parish Councils (Anafre) begins a new term focused on reviewing the local finance law and the statute governing local elected officials. The move signals an agenda to address budgetary frameworks, state transfers and financial autonomy for parish councils, and to clarify the legal status, duties and protections of elected representatives — potentially prompting legislative reform with practical implications for local governance and service delivery.

Depression Kristin, following storm Joseph, is set to cross Portugal and has prompted Civil Protection to raise the special state of readiness to level 4 along the coastal strip from Viana do Castelo to Setúbal. Authorities expect the most critical period around 04:00; by 22:00 more than 1,500 incidents had been recorded and one person died in Vila Franca de Xira after a tree fell on a car. This minute-by-minute briefing tracks developments, emergency responses and public-safety impacts as the situation unfolds.

As the official campaign week begins ahead of the run-off, Seguro is emphasising concrete policy areas—notably healthcare and defence—to court issue-focused and undecided voters with substantive proposals. By contrast, Ventura is maintaining daily grassroots contact through street and market visits, relying on visibility and personal outreach to energise supporters. The contrast between a policy-driven strategy and retail politics will shape narratives and could be decisive in persuading the run-off electorate.

In Parliament a lawyer challenged government claims of efficiency after noting that a Conservative MP reportedly handles only one citizenship case per day. The remark was used to question the state’s capacity to process citizenship and expat rights promptly, highlighting broader concerns about legal and administrative reform, backlogs in immigration and naturalisation decisions, and whether existing procedures allocate sufficient resources or need structural change.

Jorge Veloso, outgoing president of Anafre, said it is a disappointment to end his term without parishes being able to apply for EU community funds as promised by recent governments. He described the continued exclusion of freguesias from those funding streams as constraining local development projects and municipal budgets, and said it raises questions about the implementation and prioritisation of state policy for local government support.

Paula Franco, president of the Order of Certified Accountants (OCC), told parliament that applying a 6% VAT rate to construction as currently conceived is “not viable”. She warned the proposal could have serious implications for construction costs, accounting compliance and housing affordability and urged a rethink of the reform’s design.

PCP secretary-general Paulo Raimundo publicly challenged centre‑right and right‑wing parties (PSD, CDS, Chega and IL) to organise a demonstration in support of the new labour package, saying he wanted to “see what will happen to them”. Speaking in Porto, Raimundo called to “defeat once and for all” the labour measures and pledged “one more push” on 28 February. The provocation is a deliberate political tactic to test and expose the popular backing for the reforms and to place opponents on the defensive ahead of planned mobilisation.