COMMENT - These are the effects of austerity. They do not regrow the economy or make it more sound. They just destroy the existing economy and replace it with a more globalized economy.
The overwhelming success of austericide
Posted by revoltingeurope ⋅ April 19, 2013
Vincente Clavero
The austerity Taliban will be satisfied by the announcement by the IMF that, despite the policies advocated by them, the debt crisis in Spain may now extend for no less than ten years. According to the latest report of the Fund, presented this week by its chief economist, the Frenchman Olivier Blanchard, there’s no expectation, even by 2018, that the budget deficit will have fallen to 5.5%. And this means countless sacrifices by citizens demanded by today’s Popular Party government and its Socialist predecessor have failed in the objective to balance the public accounts.
This colossal failure, to which Angela Merkel’s Germany and well-paid technocrats of Brussels have contributed, can only surprise those who did not want to see the blindingly obvious. Cut after cut to the budget, without accompanying measures to counteract the effects of recession, meant it was guanateed that our economy was going to end up as a complete ruin. Just take a look at the main forecasts of the IMF to understand the magnitude of austericide, which in 2013 will leave us with an unbearable unemployment rate of 27%.
To hide their shame, the Popular Party Government is determined to make us believe that next year the economy will recover and begin to straighten out the dire employment situation. I hope so, but neither the Bank of Spain, nor the European Commission, nor the IMF have been able to find sufficient reasons to substantiate that optimism. Quite the contrary: the view shared by the three agencies is that unless a miracle happens, in 2014, with a fall in GDP of 0.8% – we will continue to be immersed in the the deepest economic crisis.
Rajoy has announced that next week he will launch a new reform plan, which will affect entrepreneurship and pensions. That’s bad news, based on the measures taken so far on these matters. The self-employed have seen VAT rise significantly and tax arrangements in other areas deteriorate, and since the Right returned to power in late 2011 pensions have deteriorated substantially.
As usual, Rajoy, his party and the media chorus that encourages him say that socialist PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is to blame, but he’s hardly the only culprit. Zapatero’s big mistake was being overcome by a panic attack in May 2010 and to have embraced neoliberal policies that the Popular Party then gladly accelerated. But Rajoy has been in the Moncloa Palace for a year and a half and to date has not only not fixed anything, but he has done further damage, plunging Spanish society, including those who voted for him, into utter despair
El Publico 19.4.2013
Translation by Revolting Europe
Labels: AUSTERICIDE, AUSTERITY, IMF
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COMMENT - British Ambassador, himself a neoliberal appointee doing Captain Renault in Casablanca: "I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in here!". What effect did you think the Eurobonds were going to have? And what was this money spent on? Not fuel and agriculture subsidies and pensions. And yet they're the ones who have to pay for this heist. - MrK
(ZAMBIAN OBSERVER) British envoy calls for immediate stop to Zambia’s high expenditure
December 8, 2016
By Mike Riley
BRITISH High Commissioner Fergus Cochrane-Dyet says high expenditure by the Zambian government must not be allowed to continue because the country has been spending more than it can afford.
And EU head of delegation to Zambia Ambassador Alessandro Mariani says 2017 is very promising for the country as new projects are due to come on stream in the new year.
Speaking during an EU-Zambia Partnership media breakfast in Lusaka yesterday, High Commissioner Cochrane-Dyet said the current trajectory of high fiscal deficits and mounting public debt could not be allowed to continue.
According to ZIPAR, Zambia’s external debt increased by 6.3 per cent from US$6.3 billion as at August 2015 to about US$6.7 billion as at September 2016.
“Zambia’s need for economic reform is pressing. It is sad that debt servicing has returned to become a major feature of government expenditure. Subsidies, public sector costs, along with debt servicing, dominate. This cannot continue indefinitely. Expenditure must be reduced and revenue increased. This process will not be easy for the government – or painless for ordinary Zambians,” High Commissioner Cochrane-Dyet told stakeholders at Lusaka’s Taj Pamodzi Hotel.
“For some time, Zambia has been running a fiscal deficit; in layman’s terms – Zambia has been spending more than it can afford. The clearance of external debt that occurred under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) over a decade ago, has been obliterated by the accumulation of new debt, including three Eurobonds.”
He added that while the EU welcomed the Zambian government’s steps to address the country’s serious economic problems through the “Zambia Plus” approach, he appealed to the government for continued positive engagement to ensure effective implementation of the cooperating partners’ financial and technical assistance.
“For cooperating partners to support Zambia, we require positive engagement from the government as well as other Zambian partner organisations, including those among civil society. It is important that we have access to ministers, permanent secretaries and other senior officials to ensure our assistance is aligned with government policy. Occasionally, it is extremely useful to meet with HE the President himself [Edgar Lungu],” said High Commissioner Cochrane-Dyet, who also stressed that part of the EU member states’ assistance was directly relevant to the government’s economic reform programme as outlined through the five pillars in the 2017 national budget.
Earlier, Ambassador Mariani told stakeholders that 2017 was set to be “a very promising year” with new projects quickly reaching an advanced stage.
The end-of-year joint briefing highlighted, among others, a comprehensive review of the EU’s project assistance during 2016 in various sectors such as the 40 million euros signed for renewable energies on November 28, and a 2017 outlook.
Labels: AUSTERITY, FERGUS COCHRANE-DYET, HPIC, NEOLIBERALISM, PENSIONS
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COMMENT - Excellent article. Even more, it is already known that if there is this level of economic violence, pushed to a head by austerity measures, there are going to be what the
former World Bank Vice Chairman Joseph Stiglitz has called the IMF Riots.
(LUSAKA TIMES) IMF Bailout: A Strangulation of Zambia’s Future
October 23, 2016
Fellow countrymen and women, comrades and friends, allow me to first echo the wise words of the revolutionary icon Thomas Sankara. “Debt is a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa.” “He who feeds you, controls you.”
Once again, our leaders today have failed to think. They were employed by the Zambian people to think wisely on behalf of the nation. They were voted to improve and safeguard the welfare of the Zambian people. They were not employed to contract gigantic loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or any other lending institution. Even at gun point, I refuse to accept that borrowing money from the IMF at the detriment of Zambia’s future is part of their mandate. Their mandate is to think of alternative sustainable ways to resuscitate the economy, as opposed to rushing to the IMF for a bailout that strangles the country’s future especially the poorest citizens. A government that cannot think of alternative ways to regrow the economy apart from borrowing from these money-lending institutions is not fit to hold public office. It is now clear, our ministers are appointed, not to think on behalf of the ministries they lead, but to ceremonially occupy such positions while shamelessly enjoying free housing, transport, electricity, airtime, state security and gallivanting around the globe at the expense of taxpayer’s money.
the IMF promotes a fertile ground for breeding poverty, making it impossible for poor countries to eradicate poverty and realize food security
.
I am struggling to understand why our politicians have failed to comprehend that the so called bailout package from the IMF has never been a viable and sustainable option to resuscitate an ailing economy. You do not need a PhD, bachelor’s degree, diploma, or certificate to understand the ramifications of an IMF bailout package. A simple perusal through the conditionalities attached to such a bailout package should enable even a rural dweller, who has never been to school, to understand that the IMF bailout is a well-calculated scheme to keep the poor poorer.
There is no rocket science involved in understanding that the IMF discourages you from subsidizing your own farmers. In this regard, the IMF promotes a fertile ground for breeding poverty, making it impossible for poor countries to eradicate poverty and realize food security. The IMF further emphasises reduction of government funding to health and education, a condition that goes counter to the campaign championing access to education and healthcare for all. Such a condition further strangles the country’s efforts to build a productive human resource pool. It is simple. If you don’t fund your education system, then the country’s capacity to produce its own skilled manpower – teachers, nurses, medical doctors, lawyers et cetera is substantially curtailed. In the long term, such skills will have to be sourced externally at an astronomical cost on the country’s treasury. Moreover, privatization and liberalization, which are a hallmark of the IMF, have the potential to completely decimate domestic industries. Fellow Zambians, you will agree with me that we have been yearning for a Zambia with the capacity to produce its own goods and services. The IMF is here to shatter this dream. Surely, with all these real-life practical examples, it is shocking to see our ministers, some of them very educated, failing to understand that the IMF is here to perpetuate poverty. Our dream to become a politically and economically independent country will remain an illusion as long as we embrace institutions like the IMF and the World Bank.
Fellow patriots, allow me to conclude by stating one logical fact. Should Zambia accept this IMF bailout, it is the elite politicians that should bear the burden of austerity measures. Ordinary Zambians have suffered enough already. As part of austerity, the republican president should be relocated to another modesty housing. This may sound crazy to most of you because you are accustomed to seeing a republican president living a lavish lifestyle in state house. It cannot be disputed that the country spends astronomical sums of money in trying to sustain state house.
Moreover, it is immoral to continue enjoying a lavish life in state house while your citizens are dying of hunger induced by austerity measures from the IMF. Unless an international trip will add value to the country’s well-being, the republican president and his ministers should not gallivant around the world. It is important to note that most of the international trips are totally irrelevant to the suffering common man. Additionally, the use of a private jet aircraft on international trips should be abolished. We should also scrape off free entitlements such as housing, fuel, electricity, transport et cetera from our ministers. Most importantly, the ridiculously big and expensive ministerial cars which guzzle unreasonable litres of fuel should be auctioned and cheaper cars purchased in their place. There are many other ridiculous entitlements that we need to scrap off from our public office bearers. Politicians too, need to share in the burden of austerity.
By Peter Mubanga Cheuka
Labels: AUSTERITY, IMF, JOSEPH STIGLITZ, NEOLIBERALISM, World Bank
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COMMENT - This is all very predictable. When the cost of living gets high enough, there are going to bei IMF Riots, using the term of the former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz.
IMF intervention will result in terrible living conditions - Prof Chigunta
By Chambwa Moonga |
Updated: 03 May,2016 ,12:06:27
PROFESSOR Francis Chigunta says there would have been
no need to resort to an IMF intervention that will primarily result in
terrible living conditions for citizens had the
PF government
listened to stakeholders’ alarm over the country’s deteriorating economy.
Prof Chigunta, who served as political advisor to former president Rupiah Banda, said while it was realistic that countries under severe economic challenges sought recourse from the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
Zambia could not have degenerated to that level had the government valued economic expertise from various commentators.
Last Friday, the Zambian government announced that it had accepted an IMF programme to be implemented after the August 11 general elections in the fourth quarter of 2016.
According to Secretary to the Treasury Fredson Yamba, both the IMF and the Zambian government agreed to commence the programme in line with the 2017 national budget.
Yamba also stated that the government would work towards making necessary adjustments in electricity tariffs and fuel pump prices.
“What I’m going to say about the IMF programme is that well, countries seek recourse to the IMF when they begin to face challenges, especially in terms of imbalances in their finances, because that’s the primary purpose of why the IMF was established - to help countries deal with financial problems that they face due to either external or internal shocks. In many cases, those shocks are actually worsened by weak or poor economic management as is currently the case in Zambia. The situation has been compounded by external shocks like the fall in the price of copper and internal shocks like policy inconsistencies, weak revenue collection and so on,” Prof Chigunta said in an interview yesterday.
“We shouldn’t have actually been going to the IMF if government had listened and adhered to the advice that various people, including me, have been offering in the past. Remember, we’ve been there before. All it required really was a strong economic management and that’s prudence in terms of public expenditure. We don’t really have to tell the government how to look after the finances or how to run the economy but because of some weaknesses in economic governance, that’s why we’ve found ourselves in this challenge.”
He lamented the government’s poor fiscal policies and said the IMF economic programme the government has agreed to implement after elections will come with hard-hitting conditionalities on citizens, especially those who are already vulnerable.
“The IMF programme comes with tough conditionalities and because of those tough conditionalities; these programmes are usually shrouded in mystery,” Prof Chigunta warned.
“Conditionalities in the case of Zambia, for example, from what I understand, demand that Zambia has to remove fuel subsidies or to do some [upward] adjustments in the fuel pump price, electricity tariffs and the exchange rate. Now, you understand that when you remove subsidies on those items, immediately the cost of living is going to shoot up.
It’s already high but it’s going to worsen. So, my fear is that the living conditions after elections for the majority of people will be terrible because of those economic recovery efforts that will be necessitated by the IMF austerity programme. So, we need to be very careful and look at how the programme is going to impact on the vulnerable population.”
And on President Edgar Lungu’s statement in Chipata on April 17 that the government had decided to sign a Statutory Instrument (SI) to regulate and reduce the price of mealie-meal which was high in some parts of the country, Prof Chigunta charged that such a move was “very untenable and is totally inconsistent with the IMF economic programme which the government hopes to implement.”
“It (SI) will seriously affect the performance of the agriculture sector in Zambia. When you try to impose price controls, you don’t give incentives to farmers and so, the result is that maize production in the country may be affected and if it is affected, it actually worsens the same problem which the government is trying to cure. So, price controls are not the solution but the solution is to review our agricultural policy,” advised Prof Chigunta.
Labels: AUSTERITY, FRANCIS CHIGUNTA, IMF, IMF RIOTS
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(GLOBALRESEARCH, WSWS) Speaking from Gold Throne, UK Prime Minister David Cameron Proclaims Austerity Cuts to Be “Permanent”
By Robert Stevens
Global Research, November 14, 2013
World Socialist Web Site
British Prime Minister David Cameron used the annual speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in London’s Guildhall to declare that the devastating austerity being imposed by his government will be “permanent.”
Surrounded by the opulence of the Guildhall’s grandest room, Cameron addressed 900 rich and well-pampered guests enjoying a sumptuous banquet, courtesy of the City of London Corporation’s £12 million fund for ceremony and hospitality.
Speaking from a gold throne and gilded lectern, Cameron said the government’s main priority was “an economy with a state we can afford”, denouncing those “who seem to think that the way you reduce the cost of living in this country is for the state to spend more and more taxpayers’ money.”
His remarks were in part aimed at the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, sitting alongside him. Welby had previously raised concerns about the social impact of cuts to welfare benefits.
“At a time when family budgets are tight, it is really worth remembering that this spending [on benefits] comes out of the pockets of the same taxpayers whose living standards we want to see improve. I hope the Archbishop of Canterbury will forgive me for saying—it’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul, but rather robbing Peter to pay Peter,” said Cameron.
The biggest threat facing Britain “is if our budget deficit and debts get out of control again… We have a plan—and we are carefully implementing that plan.”
Stating that the slashing of public spending under the coalition had already “cut the deficit by a third,” he said there was more to come. “But that doesn’t just mean making difficult decisions on public spending. It also means something more profound. It means building a leaner, more efficient state. We need to do more with less. Not just now, but permanently.”
Citing some of the massive job cuts and privatisations underway Cameron lauded a “leaner, more efficient, more affordable state… There are 40 percent fewer people working in the Department for Education—but over 3,000 more free schools and academies, with more children doing tougher subjects than ever before. There are 23,000 fewer administrative roles in the NHS—but 5,000 more doctors, with shorter waiting times.”
The implications of Cameron’s remarks are chilling. The NHS budget is being slashed by £20 billion by 2015, around one-fifth of its annual budget. Calls are now being made to increase this to £30 billion. This is being accompanied by speeding up privatisation with the introduction of the Health and Social Care Act of 2012.
On the same day Cameron spoke, the Royal College of Nurses revealed that NHS cuts were jeopardising patient safety. The RCN said that there was now a shortage of some 20,000 nurses in the health service, with inadequate staffing a common factor in especially high mortality rates in certain hospitals.
Similarly state education is being eroded and privatised with the widespread introduction of academies and free schools. Teachers are currently under a three-year wage freeze and cuts in pension rights have resulted in an estimated 12 percent fall in their pay.
This month the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development placed the UK on the lowest ranks of 65 countries on educational attainment, behind Russia, Poland and Hungary. In an earlier report, it described British schools as among the most socially segregated in the world.
As Cameron made clear, the real objective of mass job losses, privatisation, and falling living standards is not “reducing the national deficit” but satisfying the demands of the City of London, which he described as “the global home of finance.”
Cameron was unabashed in his glorification of the 1980s Thatcher government, whose policies laid the basis for a British economy which is today a custom-built tool of the banks and super-rich. Britain’s success “in the global race” meant “taking the country that led the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution and the market-based revolution of the 80s and equipping it to lead the economic revolution of today,” he said.
No one would have known that it was the rampant criminality, speculation and money mad profiteering, pioneered and led by the parasites at the London Stock Exchange and Wall Street and their “market-based revolution,” that resulted in the 2008 financial meltdown—a collapse that is paid for out of the living standards of workers in Britain, Europe and globally.
Demanding a “fundamental culture change in our country,” he cited one that “values that typically British, entrepreneurial, buccaneering spirit, and that rewards people with the ambition to make things, sell things and create jobs for others.”
Cameron was at least candid in outlining what the most rapacious sections of the British ruling elite are demanding. The original buccaneers were pirates who robbed Spanish ships in the Caribbean in the 17th century.
Cameron’s meaning certainly wasn’t lost on the right wing Daily Telegraph,who editorialised, “Such piratical imagery has, in the past, held negative connotations for capitalism—suggesting exploitation, even criminality. But Mr Cameron’s reclaiming of it promises a celebration of the wealth-creating potential of the private sector that many of his backbenchers will welcome.”
The “government should go starboard bound,” (to the right) it enthused, adding, “This is a good direction to sail in.”
Unsurprisingly billionaire oligarch Rupert Murdoch’s Sun endorsed Cameron’s message with the headline, “BUCCANEER WE GO—Build business and shrink the State.”
For the Daily Express Cameron’s speech was a “call to arms.”
As the representative of modern day looters, Cameron set out plans to gut public spending still further for the benefit of the super-rich. His government are cutting corporation tax to 20 percent, and “slashing” red tape on business. At the same time he defended the £21.8 billion cuts in welfare since 2010 that are throwing tens of thousands further into poverty.
Cameron also announced that he would lead a trade visit to China in early December. On a visit to the country in October, Chancellor George Osborne had warned that it was not appropriate to speak of China as a giant “sweatshop”, holding up its economy—one based on rampant capitalist exploitation by transnational corporations, protected and enforced by the methods of dictatorship—as the model Britain should emulate.
While the right wing media hailed Cameron’s speech, the nominally liberal press declared they were taken back by Cameron’s stated aim that austerity should be permanent. The Guardian and the New Statesman both cited Cameron’s claim on coming to office in 2010 at the head of a coalition with the Liberal Democrats that “I didn’t come into politics to make cuts,” in order to claim that the prime minister had changed tack.
This is nonsense, designed to chloroform their readers. In April 2009, more than a year before becoming prime minister, Cameron had declared that any government led by him would usher in an “age of austerity”. The media are well aware that this is the real agenda of the coalition—one that is shared by the Labour Party. If they are shocked it is only because Cameron has let the dirty secret of Britain’s ruling elite out of the bag.
Labels: AUSTERITY, DAVID CAMERON, NEOLIBERALISM, UK
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Neoliberal Economic Austerity Measures in Portugal: Mass Protests Point to Government Crisis
By Dick Nichols
Global Research, March 13, 2013
Green Left Weekly
Une pierre tombale pour le Portugal...
Whenever there is a protest in Portugal you are almost certain to hear the haunting song “Grandola, Vila Morena” (“Grandola, sunburnt town”), with its line “who most rules within you, O city, is the people”. On March 2, at huge protests across Portugal, “Grandola, Vila Morena” was sung by more voices than ever before.
That day, up to 1.5 million Portuguese responded to the call “Screw the Troika, Who Most Rules is the People!”. They filled the squares of 40 cities and towns to demand the immediate resignation of the government, a right-wing coalition of the Social-Democratic Party (PSD) and Democratic and Social Centre-People’s Party (CDS-PP), headed by prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho.
“Grandola, Vila Morena” was broadcast early on April 25, 1974, as the signal to launch the “Revolution of the Carnations” that ended the decades-old fascist regime. It is again becoming the freedom hymn of the biggest Portuguese protest movement since that time.
More than 1.5 million people marched throughout Portugal against austerity and for the resignation of the government. (right)
There is a popular tsunami against the austerity policies being imposed by the “troika” -- the European Central Bank, European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- as condition for the country receiving a 78 billion euro bailout.
March 2, which coincided with the seventh troika inspection of its Portuguese protectorate, was organised by the “Screw the Troika” coalition of over 100 social and community groups.
Passo’s implementation of austerity -- a million-strong Lisbon demonstration on September 15 last year.
September 15 showed the depth of popular anger against a specific government measure, a proposed increase in social security contributions that was later dropped -- a success for the movement.
March 2 was much more: a protest against the entire gamut of Troika austerity policies and one that had a precise demand -- government resignation and fresh elections.
As the “people’s censure motion”, voted by the 800,000 in Lisbon’s vast waterfront square Terreiro do Paco, said: “This government does not represent us. This government is illegitimate. It was elected on the basis of promises it did not fulfill.
“It promised that it would not increases taxes, but has increased them to unbearable levels. It guaranteed that it would not rob pensions nor cut financial support to workers, but not a day passes when it doesn’t rob more money from workers and retirees.
“It swore that it would not sack public servants nor increase unemployment, but every hour that passes there are more people without work …
“This people’s censure motion is the cry of a people that wants to participate. It is the public affirmation of the growing desire of the people to take the leadership of the country into their own hands, overthrowing a corrupt power … let the people rule!”
Greater participation
Compared to September 15, March 2 was more organised, with greater participation and support from trade union and left political forces, including the Left Bloc (BE), the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP).
The Socialist Party, which in government had invited the Troika into the country in the first place, had to express its “sympathy” with the movement.
The various sectors of the population most affected by government policy -- education workers, health workers, retirees and pensioners, the LGBTI community, culture workers and the unemployed--took part in the protests in various-coloured “tides”.
March 2 also brought out new sections of the community, included people attending their first demonstration. Notable was the increased presence of retirees who face cuts to already miserable pensions as part of the IMF’s latest proposal to cut Portugal’s spending by 4 billion euros this year.
Another increased presence was that of the lower ranks of the armed forces, not wearing uniform but grouped behind the banners of the three armed forces associations.
Popular chants of the day (which rhyme in Portuguese) included “With Passos at the helm, the country goes on sinking”, “It’s time for the government to exit”, “Your sacrifices are in their wallets”, “Passos, thief, you’re not worth a cent” and “One more push and the government bites the dust”.
The anger of the day was summed up by protester Fabio Carvalho in an interview for Reuters: “The government has left the people on bread and water and flogged off state assets at bargain-basement prices so as to pay the debts run up by corrupt politicians to benefit the banks.”
Hardening mood
Writing in the March 5 Expresso, political commentator Daniel Oliveira noted the hardening mood among the protesters, especially the older generation: “One of the things talked about most on Saturday was the children who emigrate, who are unemployed, who are desperate. And the lack of prospects for their grandchildren …
“Some of the retirees who took to the streets on Saturday were participating in a demonstration for the first time in their lives … and it is only now, at more than 60 years of age and after almost 40 years of democracy, that they feel propelled into the street.”
The anger has been intensified by the growing realisation that the government and troika’s Thatcherite claim that “there is no alternative” is bunkum. In a February survey by Diario de Noticias about what interviewees thought the government could cut to save and restore spending on health, education and pensions, 36% nominated interest payments on the public debt, 33% military spending and 57% spending on private-public partnerships.
On March 3, Left Bloc MP Jorge Costa made this assessment: “Saturday’s massive demonstrations have changed the immediate future of social struggle in our country … that large scale popular mobilisation is not an isolated phenomenon or an occasional cry of the soul.
“It is the expression of concrete social struggle, a permanent fact of the national situation, of a majority that is speaking out against the cuts that are crushing our society.”
That “permanent fact of the national situation” is being reinforced by Portugal’s disastrous economic plight. Growth in the year to December 2012 shrank 3.8% and, in the year to September 2012, consumption dropped by 5.9% and investment by 14.2%. Official unemployment rose from 14.8% to 17.6% in the year to January.
During the crisis government consumption has fallen, from 22.1% of GDP in 2008 to 17.5% last year. A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development states that the spending cuts in the health sector in Portugal have been twice as large larger than those agreed by the troika.
The Portuguese Ministry of Health denies this but the report adds that Portugal’s spending in the health sector is expected to fall to 5.1% of GDP in 2013, down from over 10% in 2010, and much lower than the average of 7% of GDP for the eurozone.
In Portugal’s poorest neighbourhoods, children increasingly come to school on Monday dizzy with hunger because school meals are the only ones they have. Without the country’s remaining social safety net the percentage of the population below the official poverty line would more than double to 43.6%.
Yet, despite the country being sunk in depression and with unemployment on the rise, union struggles have not disappeared. In February alone there was a week of struggle for public education and teachers’ wages, big demonstrations against the planned privatisation of state shipyards as well as strikes in the hospital sector.
State rail workers were on strike for a week in early March and March 15 will be a national day of action for public servants. Further bitter labour struggles in the private and public sectors are in the pipeline.
Can Passos survive?
All the signs are that Portugal is entering a critical phase. The call for the government to resign grows louder and louder as tensions rise within the governing coalition between those, like Passos, committed to “staying the course” and “not governing according to demonstrations” and those, like increasingly nervous MPs of the CDS-PP, who see their parliamentary careers vaporised unless Passos at least pretends to heed the people’s voice.
However, with all signs showing that Passos is determined to see out his parliamentary term, the pressure remains on the protest movement to build even stronger action.
Even more critical is giving concrete and feasible form to the alternative to Passos, the alternative of a left government. Jorge Costa sums up the challenge like this: “The people who form part of this mass movement require anti-Troika forces to develop a common response and to take concrete steps for a shared political alternative.
“First, the Left Bloc and the PCP should demand new elections and together seek a leftist government to break with the Troika. But this unity should not stop at dialogue between the anti-Troika parties. Rather, the design of a leftist government will be as broad as the program it promotes is clear…
“It is among the many, many voices of the people who have ‘occupied’ our cities that the project will draw strength. And among these voices are many socialists who refuse to accept the watered down austerity program [pursued by the SP leadership]. They are those who recognise the need for debt renegotiation and a complete change in policies for the real economy. Unity on the left will shred the [Troika] memorandum.”
On March 7, Left Bloc national co-coordinator Joao Semedo carried the mood of March 2 into the national parliament: “[The prime minister] must understand that the people are sick of him, his policies and his government … Prime minister, resign! Don’t be afraid of elections. Let democracy solve the country’s problems to which your government has been unable to respond.”
The same message had come in parliament a fortnight earlier, in musical form. As Passos was preparing to speak, a packed public gallery started to sing “Grandola, Vila Morena”, forcing the prime minister to stop. Will that moment symbolise Portugal’s future?
Dick Nichols is the European correspondent of Green Left Weekly, based in Barcelona.]
Labels: AUSTERITY, NEOLIBERALISM, PORTUGAL
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Challenging the Draconian Politics of Economic Austerity. Is Europe Ripe for Revolution?
By Michael Werbowski
Global Research, March 06, 2013
The question may not seem so far-fetched, as recent events have shown, the old continent is now confronted with ever (that is since the financial crisis first struck in 2008) deepening social fractures which have led to widening political instability.
Throughout the EU, countries such as Italy, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Spain and the latest state faced with a banking crisis or “financial meltdown”, that is Cyprus are all teetering on the edge of an economic abyss. What ails these euro zone states? It’s the draconian politics of austerity. These low or no growth remedies imposed by non-elected officials have led to the fall of governments in the so called EU “core countries” including now Italy. New actors have emerged to take on the effete elite. The Beppe Grillo political phenomenon has sent a deafeningly loud message to the establishment.
Massively, austerity with its adjunct deep social cuts, wage squeezes and endless “structural reforms”, has been rejected at the polling booth. The satirist cum politician, has not only provided some much needed comic relief to a deeply discontented populace, but he has also given vent to anger, or deep seated frustration with the out-going technocratic government of Mario Monte. In the wake of the national elections, Italy seems destined to return back to an era of short lived coalition and chronic instability which characterized the political life of the country in the post-world war years. But much more worrisome for the Brussels “commissars” is what’s happening in the Balkans. Over there we might be seeing the beginnings of a really “civil society” led, yet not so peaceful revolution.
Balkans Spring?
Do events in Bulgaria mirror those of the Arab spring? Has the violence in North Africa crossed the Mediterranean via Greece to Bulgaria? Yes it has, indeed. The confrontations between police and protestors in places like Varna and Sophia (sparked by rising energy costs, stagnant wages etc.) have rocked the region to the same extend as those in Egypt or Tunisia. And like in North Africa, the government in Sophia has fallen fast in the wake of popular unrest.
The death this week of Plamen Goranov due to self-immolation in Bulgaria is not unlike the protests actions of Mohamed Bonazizi, the Tunisian street vendor whose desperate act triggered massive demonstrations in his country, which later spread throughout the Maghreb. Whatever similarities there might be between these dramatic events in history, the suicidal yet symbolic act of one man in Varna, has ignite done more powder keg in another highly volatile part of the world which is the Balkans; an area which as we all know, was a flashpoint ofa conflict which sparked the outbreak of the First World War and also was the venue of the ex-Yugoslavia war. Both wars altered the geopolitical face of Europe forever. And will likely do so again soon if the instability there continues.
Oxymoron: EU peace prize in times of great social, economic and political unrest on the continent
Where this growing popular unrest is leading is hard to tell. But one thing seems sure: the EU is faced with widening instability not only in core states,but also in those on its periphery. That is the instability has spread beyond the Eurozone to the non-Eurozone states as well; or to Bulgaria, one of the newest member states but also one of its poorest. There is an explosive cocktail of dire poverty, widespread corruption and criminality known as “mafianomics” there, which characterizes boththe country and the region. This is not helpful. But then neither are the policies of the troika: EU, IMF and European Central Bank. These policies devised in Brussels, Washington and Frankfurt are destabilizing not only Mediterranean anymore, but Europe and the Balkans as well. Europe’s underbelly is on fire. How long will it take before the conflagration reaches the EU’s inner core: that is France, and then Germany?
Will the widening social protests against austerity lead to a continent wide revolution as it did in 1848? Perhaps not, but the EU is faced with permanent fragmentation into blocs composed of “haves and have not” states which is reminiscent of pre-war and pre-revolutionary Europe. An unpalatable prospect indeed, for an institution which won the Nobel peace prize in 2012.
Labels: AUSTERITY, EU, NEOLIBERALISM
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