The High Court has reserved judgment on whether British citizens living in other European countries are legally entitled to vote in the European Union referendum.

Two judges sitting in London heard urgent legal challenges brought by 94-year-old Second World War veteran Harry Shindler, who lives in Italy, and lawyer and Belgian resident Jacquelyn MacLennan.

They are seeking a declaration that Section 2 of the EU Referendum Act 2015, which denies them a vote because they have lived abroad for more than 15 years, is incompatible with their EU law rights.

Of the 25 billion euros that the government seeks to spend on reforming (and improving) the country, 85% is dependent on European funding - either in the form of community funds or the so-called Juncker Plan. And some of the money (2.2 billion euros) depends on Portugal coming in under 3% deficit - which is the plan for this year (click here).

As stories emerge of all the investments to come if Brussels gives the green light to the National Reform Programme, one involves €149 million, to be ploughed into help for the country’s inhabitants considered “most in need”.

Attempts to lure Portugal’s better-qualified doctors and specialists out of city centre comfort zones and into problem areas like the Algarve, Castelo Branco and the northern Alentejo have this far fallen flat - with only 20 being placed since August last year.

Reacting to news that the scheme put into place by former health minister Paulo Macedo last August did not yield results, his Socialist replacement has said that this is all set to change.

But as is the ‘flavour of the week’ right now, details are not exactly forthcoming.

With all kinds of forecasts and promises emerging from yesterday’s Council of Ministers, the bottom line is that yet again the government has kicked thoughts of a Brussels-led ‘Plan B’ into the long grass.

All kinds of ideas and reforms have now been ‘approved’ and it remains to see whether European moneymen will share the optimism echoed by president Marcelo, who has called the government’s Stability Programme “very sensible, very prudent and very realistic”.

The programme, along with the national reforms plan, were passed unanimously in an upbeat mood, with national and international media concentrating on different aspects.

The hunt is on for people suspected of having bribed two female building inspectors employed by Olhão council after €33,000 in cash was confiscated from the home of one of them.

The cash was found during a police swoop earlier this week.

Two Olhão building inspectors – both women - have been arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes.

The duo in the pay of Olhão council were detained as part of a PJ police operation entitled ‘Extranumerário’.

“Using their professional status, they would receive money from third-parties to carry out acts that went against their duties,” the force said in a statement.

The endless preoccupation with percentage points in Portugal has seen statistics authority Eurostat revise public debt revised upwards today, to 129% and confirm that the country’s ‘excessive deficit’ for 2015 - including the controversial Banif resolution -, was at 4.4%.

This throws a spanner in the works of Brussels’ rulings on countries within the excessive deficit procedure (PDE), but as Lusa explains, the government is still trying to persuade finance chiefs that Banif fallout should not be included.

PJ police are looking for a young man who allegedly tried to rape a 15-year-old girl in Lagos on Wednesday morning (April 20).

The attack happened while the girl was walking to school “on her usual route” from her home on the outskirts of town.