#austerity protests

[kevingilmour]

Thousands of medical workers have marched in the Spanish capital against plans to privatize hospitals, with more anti austerity protests planned over the next few days.

Madrid insists the harsh financial measures are crucial to help the country climb out of its deep recession.

Investment advisor Patrick Young believes the government’s approach to the crisis is what landed Spain in trouble in the first place.

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[newstfionline]

Anti-austerity strikes wrack Europe, but will they foment change?

By Andrés Cala, CS Monitor, November 14, 2012 Madrid--Striking Spaniards and Portuguese brought transportation, industry, and public services to a halt Wednesday as part of a coordinated show of force in southern Europe, hoping to force leaders to reverse a wave of belt-tightening that has left millions struggling with unemployment and poverty.

Tens of thousands mobilized, many clashing angrily with police. Hundreds of flights were cancelled. Public transportation and ports operated at minimum levels, car assembly lines shut down, and many stores preferred to remain closed. "We demand profound change in the government's policies, or else they'll lead us over the cliff," said Cándido Méndez, leader of UGT, one of Spain's two biggest unions.

At least three dozen people were injured, half of them police, and dozens more were arrested in early clashes before the main protest marches called for the evening hours in major Iberian cities, including the Madrid one targeting a barricaded Parliament. Hundreds of thousands marched in evening protests in several cities, according to early reports.

Portuguese also came out in droves, affecting public services and industry. In Italy and Greece, there were also clashes during work stoppages. Belgium and France saw limited impact, and even in Germany, small protests took place during the "European Day of Action and Solidarity." Most of the action was in Spain, though, heart of the economic meltdown throughout 2012.

But despite the economic pain--unprecedented for most Spaniards--and the support of millions for the strike, it appeared unlikely the governments felt the kind of pressure that would result in a change of course.

Indeed, after loud shouting matches and clashes early on in the day, by early afternoon, streets in Madrid's center were once again filled with shoppers and tourists and stores reopened, albeit under a heavy presence of police in riot gear.

[theamericanbear]

After nearly three years of repeated income cuts and tax hikes, Greeks have little stomach for more. On Monday, doctors launched a three-day strike that will leave state hospitals functioning on emergency staff, while taxi-drivers started rolling 24-hour strikes. There were no news broadcasts and newspapers will not be published Tuesday due to a journalists’ strike, while Athens urban rail and tram drivers walked off the job.

During the general strike Tuesday and Wednesday, schools, tax offices and public administration will shut down, while there will be no train or ferry services across the country. Flights will be disrupted for three hours Tuesday.

FYI: The rest of the article is scare-mongering nonsense.

[newstfionline]

Austerity Protests Are Rude Awakening in Portugal

By Raphael Minder, NY Times, October 14, 2012 LISBON--Portugal has long been regarded a role model in the grinding euro zone crisis. In return for an international bailout, its government cut services and raised taxes while its citizens patiently endured with little of the popular outcry seen elsewhere in southern Europe.

That is, until now.

Suddenly, the Portuguese, too, have joined the swelling ranks of Europe's discontented, following Greece and Spain, after the government tried to take another step up the austerity path last month. For many here, it was one step too far, driving tens of thousands into the streets in the largest protest of Portugal's crisis.

As Pedro Passos Coelho, Portugal's center-right prime minister, prepares to announce a new budget on Monday--filled with still more steep tax increases and public sector job cuts--he faces the kind of popular backlash that was, until recently, absent from the political and social landscape here.

Taking a page from the playbook of their Spanish neighbors, Portuguese protesters are planning to encircle the Parliament building here in the capital for the budget announcement. For their part, Portugal's powerful trade unions are preparing a general strike for Nov. 14. Arménio Carlos, the leader of the CGTP union, compared Mr. Passos Coelho to Pinocchio, accusing him of constantly changing his austerity message.

For a government that has assiduously followed the belt-tightening prescriptions of its international lenders--who rewarded Portugal with a 78 billion euro ($101 billion) bailout--it has been a rude awakening to the risks of austerity, which has even strained the governing coalition of Mr. Passo Coelho's Social Democrats and the rival Popular Party.

Many here say the government has taken the population's compliance for granted.

The turning point came in September when Mr. Passos Coelho offered a plan to redistribute social security funds by cutting employers' social security taxes while significantly raising those of employees. Although the measure was meant to lower labor costs, the outcry from workers was so ferocious that he was soon forced to withdraw it.

But the damage was already done. The misstep is now credited with having rattled the social and political cohesion that had underpinned Portugal's painful but steady progress.

The withdrawal of the tax plan left the Portuguese, who had once grudgingly accepted the pain of austerity, with a new sense of empowerment, Mr. Magalhães said. "The fact that the government backed down and the fact that no catastrophe or international censure came out of it suddenly shows that there are no inevitabilities," he said.

[theamericanbear]

[theamericanbear]

In a departure from other mass protests, members of the police force, army, navy and judicial system joined public and private sector employees on the streets. One police officer, who preferred not to give his name, said the Greek state “should feel deep shame” at imposing cuts on the very people whose protection it sought.

Hundreds of thousands of Greeks march against austerity

Since the outbreak of Europe’s debt crisis in Athens in late 2009, ordinary Greeks, worst hit by repeated rounds of austerity, have seen their purchasing power drop by as much as 50% as poverty and joblessness has reached record levels.

After a heated summer of tortuous wrangling with lenders, the alliance led by the prime minister, Antonis Samaras, is expected to finally give the package the go-ahead on Thursday. Time is of the essence, say officials, if the Greek economy is to receive a bumper rescue loan of €31.5bn, put on hold by the troika since July. The injection is now vital to “warming up” the cash-starved real economy. Creditors have made clear that without the controversial measures, there can be no money – a scenario that would see Greece defaulting on its debt, being forced to declare bankruptcy and leaving the eurozone.

“The cuts have to happen because we are at war, an economic war,” the country’s defence minister, Panos Panagiotopoulos, said this week.

Once endorsed, the package will be sent to the parliament for ratification, probably next week. But the government’s highwire act of trying to placate lenders while ensuring that the nation is not pushed over the edge will not be easy. Polls have shown the vast majority of Greeks see the measures as deeply unfair and antisocial. Highlighting fears that the recession-inducing policies have pushed Greece into an economic death spiral, the ratings agency Fitch declared on Wednesday that far from being reduced, Athens’s debt mountain was growing, with the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio set to increase from its current 164.9% to 180.2% in 2014.

“Once the Greek people learn exactly what the measures are there will be uproar,” Iliopoulos, the trade unionist, told the Guardian. “Parliament will see mass protests. And it won’t be nice.”

[theamericanbear]

Anti-austerity violence: Video of riot police clashing with protesters in Madrid (by RussiaToday)

[theamericanbear]