Socialist Resistance

An archive of socialistresistance.org, 2002–2022

Massive anti-austerity demos in Portugal

2013-02-17  ·  first published in marxsite  ·  234 words

This was not a Socialist Resistance publication. marxsite was Phil Hearse’s own long-form site, run alongside the paper he helped edit. It is kept here with his agreement, recovered from the Internet Archive after the domain lapsed and was taken over by someone else; nothing here links to the address it now points at.
Only part of this piece survives. The capture it was recovered from is truncated, so the text below stops before the article did.

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Click on image to go to EuroNews video Report by Press TV On Saturday, around 5,000 demonstrators marched in the streets of the Portuguese capital in a demonstration organized by the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), the largest trade union federation in the country. "We want to break with the commitments made in return for the rescue plan, break with right-wing policies, demand the resignation of the government and new elections," CGTP leader Armenio Carlos said. "We can feel the lack of money every day, the cost of transportation has gone up, along with school fees. This policy has no future, it is destroying the country's economy," one of the protesters said. Meanwhile, Portugal’s main international creditors -- the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the European Union (EU) -- are keeping an eye on Portugal's implementation of spending cuts and reforms required in return for the 78-billion-euro ($102 billion) rescue package the country received in 2011. The creditors agreed to relax Portugal's deficit targets for 2012 and 2013 as a reward to the country for pushing through reforms. Battered by the global financial downturn, the Portuguese economy fell into a recession, which compelled the country to negotiate with the IMF for a bailout loan in 2011. Spain, Greece, Italy, Cyprus, and Portugal are all in recession, and all five are receiving financial assistance from European bailout funds. NT/HGL

The capture this was recovered from