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Portugal Warns EU-IMF Troika to Back Off on Austerity Demands
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard , The Telegraph, UK – January 2, 2013
Portugal’s president has ordered a legal inquiry into the country’s austerity policies and threatened a showdown with creditors over the draconian terms of its EU-IMF bail-out. President Anibal Cavaco Silva called for urgent action to halt the “recessionary spiral”, warning Europe’s leaders that the current course had become “socially unsustainable”.
In a speech to the nation, he said Portugal would “honour its international obligations”, but in the same breath called for a tough line with the European Union-International Monetary Fund Troika over the pace of fiscal tightening under Portugal’s €78bn (£63bn) loan package. “We have arguments, and we should use them firmly,” he said.
“Fiscal austerity is leading to declining output and lower tax revenue. We must stop this vicious circle”, he said...
... cautioning the Troika that there would be no way out of the crisis until policy was set in the interests of the “Portuguese people” as well as foreign creditors.
His sombre speech was a reminder that Europe’s crisis is far from over. Portugal’s jobless rate has risen from 13.7 % to 16.3 % over the past year, reaching 39 % for youth, even before the full impact of austerity hits.
In a stinging rebuke to the country’s free market premier, Pedro Passos Coelho, the president asked the constitutional court to rule on the legality of tax rises that come into force this January as well as on further moves to dismantle the welfare state in the 2013 budget.
“There are well-founded doubts over whether the distribution of sacrifice is just,” he said...
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