The announcement of a Marina project for Luxury Mega-Yachts in Machico, Madeira, comes in a context of housing prices in Portugal that are the highest in the OECD, standing 36% above the organization's average and 50% above the euro area. Prices in Portugal continue to rise at triple the speed of the European Union, with a variation of 17.8% in the first quarter of 2026, almost three and a half times higher than the European average of 5.1%. Madeira ranks third among the most expensive areas in the country for housing, behind only Lisbon and Faro.
The Mayor of Machico confirmed that the project is being prepared in collaboration with the Regional Government, ensuring that each entity knows what to do so that investments proceed to licensing without obstacles. Simultaneously, JPP invited Paulo Farinha as a speaker at their parliamentary days, when he was precisely one of the people actively involved in seeking foreign investors for the Marina project in Machico, as revealed by a specialized industry publication.
The article questions whether Madeira has the socioeconomic conditions to face more inflation, when all indicators suggest it does not have this capacity. Meanwhile, government institutions decide to invest millions in golf courses, large-scale tourism developments and superyacht marinas, without addressing pressing problems such as food costs, waste management, water quality or automobile mobility.
The investigation concludes that the forces that truly govern Madeira are not political parties, but rather the investors, confirming Hugo Marques's statement. In a Mediterranean with increasingly less space for mega-yachts, international investors are looking for new ports, and it appears that no party with significant power will oppose these projects, given the path set to avoid obstacles to them.
