Portugal

Introduction

Portugal is a peaceful country with a strong sense of cultural, family values and has an advance high- income mixed economy. While the overall economy is thieving underlying political issues exist. Additionally environment faces its on challenges with air and water pollution and fair amount of soil erosion primarily in coastal areas.

Cultural Ethos and National Identity

History plays an integral role in the cultural ethos and national identity of Portugal. In particular, Portugal's achievements on the global stage during the Age of Discovery is of paramount importance. Several cultural symbols recall this period in Portuguese history, most particularly in the form of the national flag, which was adopted in 1911. The flag features an armillary sphere -- an ancient astronomical device used for maritime navigation -- and is intended to illustrate Portugal's role in global exploration.

History in Portugal also fondly recalls King Sebastian, who was killed in Morocco in the 16th century and who was supposed to repel the Spaniards who held sway at the time, and restore Portugal to sovereignty. There is, as a result, a grand sense of "Sebastianismo" in Portugese culture, which embodies a hopefulness for a new day to dawn, mixed with the anxiety that such a moment may never arrive in reality. Sebastianismo is present in the lyrics of the Portuguese "fado" or song that expresses longing, and the hopeful nostaligia in what is known in Portugal as "saudade."

Religion

Following are the ratios of the religions present in Portugal:

Roman Catholic 84.5%

Christian 2.2%

other 0.3%

unknown 9%

none 3.9%

Education

Portugal is the 6th OECD country which affects a higher percentage of their annual wealth to health needed namely 10% of its products. This trend, for natural reasons, tends to worsen, with an aging population, and may even double in the middle of this century. Regarding education, it should be noted that public spending on education, Portugal has been considered by the OECD in 2003 as a unique case of inefficiency in resource utilization in education (Economist Intelligence Unit, Pp. 12).

In short, and having further based on data from the report of the competition Portugal in the late 80's was located near the fortieth place having evolved considerably up to 27th place in 1996 that year achieved his best result so far Between 85 and 95, there was a 20% reduction in inflation to 4.1% In this period GDP per capita grew by an annual average of 4 percentage points from 55% to 66% for Europe to 15. In the same period the market share of Portuguese exports increased by 45% and has passed the compulsory education from 6 to 9 years and the number of students in higher education tripled. Since then the Portuguese economy is losing competitiveness. Thus, given this scenario, are key challenges for Portugal to reduce weight in the economy and consequently control the public deficit and foreign debt, implementing public administration reform, particularly of justice, and improve the quality of health services and education, where parents spend countless resources and get bad results, so it is highly ...