Portugal - bureaucracy

Bureaucracy in Portugal is difficult. You may receive courteous and attentive service at a personal level, but government employees in Portugal work firstly for themselves, secondly for the state, thirdly for the people. A job in government in Portugal is a very good job. Perhaps not well-paid but with good job security, benefits and pension rights by national standards. So government employees hang onto their jobs like crazy. Risk-averse behaviour you get from state employees includes: avoiding decisions that imply a degree of personal responsibility, passing the buck, strictly interpreting rules where some completely legal discretion could work in your favour, insisting that you employ a local lawyer or accountant who can bear the brunt of responsibility and shield them from that responsibility, requiring supporting paperwork and correspondence that is not absolutely required etc.

The system can move at a glacial pace. The process determines the result, not the other way round. There is nepotism, job-padding and amorphous responsibility everywhere. Empire-building means there is little incentive for internal reform. Real change can only come from external action e.g. outsourcing, sweeping top-down reorganisations, budget cuts, recruitment limits etc. However these public-sector employees by their nature are more statist and socialist than average. Their collective organisation and level of trade unionism is very strong. Really dramatic reform attempts would be met with immediate and sustained strike action that major Portuguese political parties are loathe to face.

It is only when you live in Portugal that you really understand how bureaucratic the whole country is. It genuinely feels like a first-world country with a third-world bureaucracy. There are deep structural issues here. A bloated public sector just reflects that Portugal is not competitive in the modern world economy.

As always, Portugal will make required changes only when forced to do so. If economic growth collapses in a sustained way for whatever reason, finally the Portuguese people might be honest with themselves and vote for political parties that commit to deep reforms in the public sector.