Portugal's Unending Sphere of Influence: An opening statement credits Portugal's 16th- and 17th-century explorations with leading to "the first real interaction among almost all the world's peoples." Yet that interaction was not benign. Portuguese seafarers introduced rifles to Japan, the Inquisition to India and African slaves to Brazil, and most of that is acknowledged somewhere among the exhibit's more than 250 objects.Portugal en Iberia: En el caso de que la predicción de Saramago se cumpla, algunas peculiaridades se deberían tener en cuenta. En cuanto a la lengua portuguesa, quizá ésa sea la única solución para que los españoles la aprendan. Hoy en día, todo portugués culto puede conversar en español; apenas un puñado de españoles pueden desempeñarse en la lengua vecina. Para los españoles, algunos obstáculos parecen insalvables: por un lado se sienten cómodos al observar la lengua escrita; al oírla, se dan cuenta de que es muy diferente, con un sistema vocálico enriquecido y la desaparición de consonantes en la endiablada velocidad con que desarrollan los discursos repletos de altibajos tonales. Portugal parece un país de millones de ventrílocuos: hablan sistemáticamente con los labios cerrados. De declararse el portugués como lengua obligatoria en Iberia, al nivel del castellano, se habría terminado con este handicap.
Portuguese resent EU as they take its helm: However potent its imperial hangover, the greatest factor weighing on Portugal's mixed attitude toward the EU is its economy, which is severely underperforming other neighboring EU countries like Spain.
According to a recent Eurobarometer poll, support for the EU dropped to 49 percent last year compared with 58 percent the year before but edged up to 55 percent in the first quarter of this year. In 2006, half of the respondents believed the process of European integration undermined the country's economy and contributed to its 8 percent unemployment rate.
While the Spanish economy grew at about 3.9 percent last year, Portugal had the lowest economic growth in Western Europe, about 1.3 percent. Its budget deficit of 3.9 percent of gross domestic product also breaches EU rules requiring countries in the euro zone to maintain deficits under 3 percent.
