“As soon as the decision is taken to reintroduce the civil holidays in Portugal, the foreign ministry, which is responsible for dealings with the Holy See, will ensure the holidays are reintroduced, he said on the sidelines of the opening session of the Diplomatic Seminar, being held in Lisbon today.
Mr Silva said that reintroducing the holidays that were removed for austerity purposes in 2013 – Corpus Christi (a moveable date 60 days after Easter Sunday, which will mean 26 May in 2016) and All-Saints day (1 November) – involves a procedure that “is the easiest thing to do “.
In practice it is “just bringing the reintroduction forward a year as under the terms that had been agreed, after 1 January 2017, the religious holidays would be reintroduced or re-examined anyway”, he added.