Brussels, 11/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - During the night of Wednesday to Thursday, the Portuguese government put the finishing touches to a draft budget characterised by tax hikes (see EUROPE 10703), and on Thursday 11 October, two Portuguese GUE/NGL MEPs pointed out that ordinary inhabitants of Portugal were paying a high price under the austerity measures demanded of them.
Marisa Matias and Alda Sousa listed official figures that tend to get ignored, saying that the Portuguese government and the troika of lenders keep saying that the austerity programme is paying off, but this is not true and the plan is killing the country. The two women point out that 43% of Portuguese inhabitants are now at risk of poverty, with a further 20% already living in poverty. Officially, nearly 35% of young people are unemployed, but the two politicians said that the real figure is much higher. Some 3,000 families say they cannot pay their fuel bills every month. Some have been forced out of their homes and most Portuguese families live on no more than €900 a month.
The two women criticise the official discourses of the troika, which welcome Portugal's progress, while the population has reached breaking point. Matias says that people accepted things at the beginning, saying there was no other solution. But she said that it was simply not true that there was no other solution and the current programme must be stopped. The MEPs call for the holding of general elections because the government has gone beyond what the troika is demanding. Quoting an IMF study saying that Portugal has the second highest taxes on its inhabitants (Argentina is first), Matias pointed out that the new measures were not going to solve anything. (SP/transl.fl)