2017 in Portugal explained

Events in the year 2017 in Portugal.

Incumbents

• • President: Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa Prime Minister: António Costa (Socialist)

Events

January to March

• 1 January – Former Prime Minister António Guterres begins his term as the new Secretary-General of the United Nations.^[1]
• 10 January – The state funeral for former President Mário Soares is held in Lisbon three days after his death at the age of 92, with foreign dignitaries including Felipe VI of Spain, the President of Brazil Michel Temer, and former French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in attendance.^[2]
• 1 February – The Supreme Court of Justice dismisses a libel case brought by British couple Kate and Gerry McCann against former police detective Goncalo Amaral, who had accused the couple of being responsible for the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine in Praia da Luz in 2007.^[3]
• 8 February – Spanish financial company Caixabank finalises its €645 million takeover of Banco BPI, raising its ownership stake in the Portuguese lender to 84.5%.^[4]
• 16 February:
  • Government prosecutors announce that they have filed charges of bribery and corruption against Manuel Vicente, the Vice President of Angola, who is accused of paying $810,000 to a former Portuguese state prosecutor to end earlier investigations of corruption.^[5]
  • Data from the Instituto Nacional de Estatística reveals that tourist numbers to Portugal grew for the sixth successive year in 2016, rising to just under 11 million.^[6]
• 9 March – Finance Minister Mário Centeno announces plans to create a new independent financial oversight body to supervise the rescue of struggling banks, a power that currently resides with the central Banco de Portugal. The move comes after criticism directed at the Banco de Portugal for failing to predict the failure of Banco Espirito Santo in 2014 and Banif in 2015, among others.^[7]
• 29 March – Madeira International Airport is renamed after football player Cristiano Ronaldo in a ceremony attended by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Prime Minister António Costa.^[8]
• 31 March – The Banco de Portugal announces the sale of a 75% controlling stake in Novo Banco to American investment company Lone Star Funds.^[9]

April to June

• 4 April – An explosion at a fireworks factory in the village of Avoes in the Viseu District kills six people.^[10]
• 17 April – Five people are killed and four are injured when an Piper PA-31 Navajo aircraft crashes outside a Lidl supermarket in Tires near Lisbon.^[11]
• 13 May:
  • Pope Francis canonises Francisco and Jacinta Marto in a ceremony held at the Sanctuary of Fátima on the centenary of the pair's reported visions of the Virgin Mary.^[12]
  • In association football, Benfica secure a fourth consecutive Primeira Liga title with a 5–0 victory over Vitoria Guimaraes. It is the club's 36th top-flight championship title.^[13]
  • Salvador Sobral is voted the winner of the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Amar Pelos Dois", securing Portugal's first victory in the competition.^[14]
• 21 May – In motor racing, France's Sébastien Ogier wins the 2017 Rally de Portugal.^[15]
• 17 June – A series of wildfires break out across Pedrógão Grande and neighbouring municipalities in central Portugal, killing 64 people and destroying more than 30,000 hectares of forest.^[16] Three days of official mourning are declared on 18 June, which sees hundreds of firefighters tackling 156 separate fires,^[17] the two largest of which are brought under control over 22–23 June.^[16] The outbreak marks the country's deadliest spate of wild fires since 1966.^[18]
• 28 June – A theft of weapons at a military base in Tancos, approximately 100km (100miles) northeast of Lisbon, is discovered. Five military commanders are provisionally suspended and President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa orders a full inquiry into the incident. In the days following the discovery the Spanish newspaper El Espaňol obtains and publishes a list of the weapons stolen, which includes gun ammunition, hand and anti-tank grenades, and plastic explosives.^[19]

July to September

• 2 August – Two sunbathers are killed when a Cessna light aircraft is forced to make an emergency landing on a crowded beach in Caparica. The two occupants of the plane, a student pilot and a flying instructor, escape unharmed.^[20]
• 15 August:
  • Thirteen people are killed and 49 are injured after a tree falls on attendants of a religious festival near the Madeiran capital of Funchal.^[21]
  • In cycling, Spain's Raúl Alarcón wins the 2017 Volta a Portugal.^[22]
• 16 August – The National Emergency and Civil Protection Authority reveals that to date 141000ha of land has been destroyed by wildfires in 2017, with firefighters attending more than 10,000 fires, a rise of 25% compared to 2016.^[23]
• 17 August – Wildfires surround and cut off access to the town of Mação in central Portugal, prompting the evacuation of approximately 130 people from neighbouring settlements.^[23]

October to December

• 1 October – Local elections: The Socialist Party wins the highest number of municipalities and the greatest share of the vote ahead of the Social Democratic Party, which suffers its poorest ever performance in a local election. Prime Minister António Costa hails the result as a "historic victory" for the Socialist Party, while Pedro Passos Coelho announces he will re-evaluate his position as Social Democratic leader in the new year.^[24]
• 3 October – Following a meeting of the Social Democratic Party in the aftermath of the local elections, Pedro Passos Coelho states that he will relinquish his role as party leader once the party selects his successor in December.^[25]
• 11 October – Former Prime Minister José Sócrates is formally charged by state prosecutors on counts of corruption, money laundering, document forgery, and tax fraud committed between 2006 and 2015.^[26]
• 19 October – Interior Minister Constanca Urbano de Sousa resigns from her position after criticism mounts over the government's response to this year's wildfires, which to date have killed more than 100 people. She is replaced in her role by the deputy Prime Minister Eduardo Cabrita.^[27]
• 7 November – The Directorate-General of Health confirms that an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease at the São Francisco Xavier hospital in Lisbon has killed two of 34 infected patients.^[28]
• 30 November – The government is accused of censorship by the University of Coimbra's Xavier Viegas, an author of an official report into the June wildfires, after restricting 96 pages of the finished document solely to members of the victims' families.^[29]
• 4 December – Finance Minister Mário Centeno is elected as the next President of the Eurogroup. He is scheduled to take office in January 2018.^[30]
• 28 December – President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa undergoes emergency surgery for an umbilical hernia at Lisbon's Curry Cabral Hospital. He is discharged three days later on 31 December ahead of his New Year's address to the nation the following day.^[31]

Deaths

January to March

• 1 January  -, musician (born 1984).^[32]
• 2 January  -, actor (born 1972).^[33]
• 3 January  -, historian and poet (born 1923).^[34]
• 7 January – Mário Soares, politician, President of Portugal (1986–1996) (born 1924).^[35]
• 10 February – Manuela Saraiva de Azevedo, journalist and writer (born 1905).^[36]
• 20 February – José Fernandes Fafe, diplomat and writer (born 1927).^[37]
• 2 March –, painter (born 1935).^[38]

April to June

• 13 April –, writer and poet (born 1948).^[39]
• 15 April – Alberto Carneiro, sculptor (born 1937).^[40]
• 28 April –, theologist (born 1934).^[41]
• 9 May – Armando Baptista-Bastos, author and journalist (born 1934).^[42]
• 23 May – Manuel de Seabra, writer and translator (born 1932).^[43]
• 1 June –, poet (born 1938).^[44]
• 22 June –, economist and politician, Minister of Finance (1990–91) (born 1950).^[45]
• 25 June – José Manuel Mourinho Félix, football player and manager (born 1938).^[46]

July to September

• 3 July – Henrique Medina Carreira, jurist and politician, Minister of Finance (1976–1978) (born 1931).^[47]
• 13 July – Américo Amorim, businessman (born 1934).^[48]
• 11 September – António Francisco dos Santos, Roman Catholic clergyman, Bishop of Porto (2014–2017) (born 1948).^[49]

October to December

• 1 October – José Pratas, football referee (born 1957).^[50]
• 5 October – António de Macedo, filmmaker and writer (born 1931).^[51]
• 7 November – João Hall Themido, diplomat, Ambassador to the United States (1971–1981) (born 1924).^[52]
• 24 November – Clotilde Rosa, harpist, composer, and music educator (born 1930).^[53]
• 29 November – Belmiro de Azevedo, businessman (born 1938).^[54]

See also

• List of Portuguese films of 2017

Notes and References

1. Web site: Will António Guterres be the UN's best ever secretary general?. The Guardian. Angelique. Chrisafis. Julian. Borger. 1 January 2017. 29 March 2022.
2. Web site: Foreign dignitaries attend funeral of former Portugal leader. Associated Press News. 10 January 2017. 11 July 2020.
3. Web site: Madeleine McCann's parents lose libel case appeal in Portugal. The Guardian. Press Association. 1 February 2017. 12 July 2020.
4. Web site: Caixabank gets 84.5 percent stake in Portugal's Banco BPI in takeover. Reuters. Sergio. Goncalves. Andrei. Khalip. Ruth Pitchford. 8 February 2017. 29 March 2022.
5. Web site: Angola VP Manuel Vicente 'to face Portugal corruption charges'. BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. 16 February 2017. 10 July 2020.
6. Web site: Portugal tourist arrivals hit sixth straight record in 2016. Reuters. Andrei. Khalip. Ken Ferris. 16 February 2017. 10 July 2020.
7. Web site: Portugal to create new regulator for financial stability. Reuters. Sergio. Goncalves. Axel. Bugge. Mark Trevelyan. 9 March 2017. 13 July 2020.
8. Web site: Fasten your seatbelts: Cristiano Ronaldo Airport is here. Associated Press News. 29 March 2017. 14 July 2020.
9. Web site: Lone Star to Buy Controlling Stake in Portugal's Novo Banco. The New York Times. Chad. Bray. 31 March 2017. 12 July 2020. registration.
10. Web site: Six dead in Portugal fireworks explosions. Reuters. Axel. Bugge. Stephen Powell. 4 April 2017. 14 July 2020.
11. Web site: Five dead after plane crash near to Lidl supermarket in Portugal. ITV News. 17 April 2017. 19 July 2020.
12. Web site: Pope Francis canonises two children at Portugal's Fatima shrine. BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. 13 May 2017. 17 July 2020.
13. Web site: Benfica wins 4th straight Portuguese league title. Associated Press News. 13 May 2017. 17 July 2020.
14. Web site: A Portuguese Ballad Earns Country's First Eurovision Victory. The New York Times. Christopher. Shea. 13 May 2017. 20 July 2020.
15. Web site: WRC Rally of Portugal: Ogier takes comfortable second win of season. Autosport. Matt. Beer. Jack. Cozens. 21 May 2017. 19 July 2020.
16. Web site: Portugal forest fires under control after more than 60 deaths. The Guardian. Sam. Jones. 22 June 2017. 28 July 2020.
17. Web site: Portugal forest fires: Three days of mourning for 62 victims. BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. 18 June 2017. 28 July 2020.
18. Web site: Portugal declares three days of mourning as at least 61 killed in forest fire. The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. James. Badcock. 19 June 2017. 28 July 2020.
19. Web site: Grenades and plastic explosives stolen from Portuguese arsenal. The Guardian. Sam. Jones. 3 July 2017. 13 October 2018.
20. Web site: Two sunbathers killed as plane lands on beach in Portugal. The Guardian. David. Connett. 2 August 2017. 21 July 2020.
21. Web site: Oak Tree Falls in Portugal During Ceremony, Killing 13. The New York Times. Raphael. Minder. Matt. Stevens. 15 August 2017. 23 July 2020.
22. Web site: Raúl Alarcón é o vencedor da Volta a Portugal. Portuguese. Jornal de Noticias. 15 August 2017. 22 February 2021.
23. Web site: Wildfires trap 2,000 people in town in central Portugal. The Guardian. Agence France-Presse. 17 August 2017. 3 July 2020.
24. Web site: Portugal's Socialists secure victory in local elections. Financial Times. Peter. Wise. 2 October 2017. 25 July 2020.
25. Web site: Portugal's opposition leader steps down after election defeat. Politico. Paul. Ames. 4 October 2017. 29 July 2020.
26. Web site: Portuguese ex-PM Socrates indicted on corruption charges. Reuters. Andrei. Khalip. Mark Heinrich. Robin Pomeroy. 11 October 2017. 23 July 2020.
27. Web site: Portugal: interior minister resigns after wildfires kill 100. The Guardian. Press Association. 19 October 2017. 28 July 2020.
28. Web site: Legionnaires' disease in Lisbon hospital kills two, 32 infected. Reuters. Andrei. Khalip. Gareth Jones. 7 November 2017. 30 July 2020.
29. Web site: Portugal fire report in 'censorship' row. BBC News. British Broadcasting Corporation. Martin. Morgan. 30 November 2017. 30 July 2020.
30. Web site: Eurogroup's next leader will be Portugal's Mário Centeno. Politico. Bjarke. Smith-Meyer. 4 December 2017. 29 July 2020.
31. Web site: Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa já teve alta e foi aplaudido à saída. Portuguese. Diário de Notícias. 31 December 2017. 27 February 2021.
32. Web site: Morreu Cláudio Panta Nunes, dos Corvos. Portuguese. Blitz. 2 January 2017. 22 February 2021.
33. Web site: Morreu o actor português Jacinto Durães. Portuguese. Sábado. Lusa News Agency. 3 January 2017. 22 February 2021.
34. Web site: Morreu o investigador e poeta Augusto Mascarenhas Barreto. Portuguese. Público. Lusa News Agency. 3 January 2017. 22 February 2021.
35. Web site: Mário Soares obituary. The Guardian. John. Hooper. 8 January 2017. 11 July 2020.
36. Web site: Morreu Manuela de Azevedo, a primeira jornalista portuguesa. Portuguese. Público. Joana. Gorjão Henriques. Manuel. Louro. 10 February 2017. 28 February 2021.
37. Web site: Morreu o embaixador José Fernandes Fafe. pt. Expresso. Manuela. Goucha Soares. 20 February 2017. 24 July 2020.
38. Web site: Morreu aos 82 anos a pintora e criadora de moda Maria Velez. Portuguese. Diário de Notícias. Lusa News Agency. 3 March 2017. 1 March 2021.
39. Web site: Morreu Mário Contumélias, jornalista e autor da canção "O Areias é um Camelo". Portuguese. Expresso. Lusa News Agency. 14 April 2017. 28 February 2021.
40. Web site: Morreu o escultor Alberto Carneiro. pt. Diário de Noticias. Lusa News Agency. 15 April 2017. 24 July 2020.
41. Web site: Morreu o padre Joaquim Carreira das Neves. Portuguese. Público. Natália. Faria. 28 April 2017. 28 February 2021. registration.
42. Web site: Morreu Baptista-Bastos. Estava a escrever as suas memórias. pt. Público. Nuno. Ribeiro. 9 May 2017. 23 July 2020.
43. Web site: Mor Manuel de Seabra: "Odieu-vos els uns als altres". Catalan. Núvol. A.. Munné-Jordá. 23 May 2017. 28 February 2021.
44. Web site: Armando Silva Carvalho (1938-2017). O homem que sabia a mar. Portuguese. Nascer do Sol. 2 June 2017. 1 March 2021.
45. Web site: Morreu o ex-ministro das Finanças Miguel Beleza . Portuguese. Observador. Rita. Cipriano. Helena Christina. Coelho. 22 June 2017. 1 March 2021.
46. Web site: Lutto per Josè Mourinho: è morto a 79 anni papà Felix. it. Il Giornale. Gianni. Carotenuto. 26 June 2017. 23 July 2020.
47. Web site: Morreu Medina Carreira, o incómodo "pessimista" . pt. Observador. André. Kosters. Lusa News Agency. 3 July 2017. 25 July 2020.
48. Web site: Morreu o empresário Américo Amorim. pt. Público. Cristina. Ferreira. Hugo. Torres. Claudia. Carvalho Silva. Manuel. Louro. 13 July 2017. 25 July 2020.
49. Web site: Morreu D. António Francisco dos Santos, bispo do Porto, "um homem da tolerância". Portuguese. Observador. Rita. Porto. João. Francisco Gomes. 11 September 2017. 27 February 2021.
50. Web site: Morreu o árbitro internacional José Pratas. Portuguese. SAPO 24. MadreMedia. 1 October 2017. 27 February 2021.
51. Web site: António de Macedo (1931-2017): morreu o realizador de todas as surpresas. pt. Público. Jorga. Mourinha. 5 October 2017. 27 July 2020.
52. Web site: Morreu João Hall Themido, ex-embaixador de Portugal nos EUA. pt. Sapo. Lusa News Agency. 8 November 2017. 31 July 2020.
53. Web site: Morreu a compositora Clotilde Rosa, pioneira da expressão contemporânea em Portugal. pt. Diário de Noticias. Lusa News Agency. 24 November 2017. 31 July 2020.
54. Web site: Morreu Belmiro de Azevedo. pt. Expresso. Anabela. Campos. 29 November 2017. 31 July 2020.