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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFuck Austerity - Portugal constitutional court rejects budget articles
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22048169<snip>
Portugal's Constitutional Court has ruled several key articles of the 2013 state budget unconstitutional.
It rejected four out of nine contested austerity measures from the budget.
It will deprive the state of some 1.5bn euros (£1.3bn) in savings the government had said were necessary to meet the terms of a eurozone bailout.
Portugal's President Anibal Cavaco Silva said before the announcement that he did not believe the court ruling should mean a change of government.
He said a vote in parliament on Wednesday, on a no-confidence motion tabled by the Socialists, had "re-legitimised" the government.
The court rejected a measure to scrap summer holiday bonuses for public sector workers and pensioners, as well as cuts to unemployment and sickness benefits.
His centre-right government must now either find alternative savings and submit them to parliament in the form of a supplementary budget - at a time when its authority to implement further austerity is weakened by the court's decision - or seek to renegotiate the terms of the bailout accord with the troika, the three institutions overseeing its implementation, says the BBC's Alison Roberts in Lisbon.
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It's going to be a long hot summer!!!
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)This is Sunday evening's update :
Portugal's prime minister has said a court ruling striking down parts of his government's budget means it will have to make other deep spending cuts.
Pedro Passos Coelho said social security, health, education and public enterprises would have to be cut.
This would allow the country to avoid a second eurozone bailout, he said.
The European Commission warned it not to depart from the bailout terms, and said carrying out the agreed programme was a precondition for further help.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22058461
Not sure about summer - day more like it. I'm guessing the alternatives don't come under their constitution and so cannot be struck down.
malaise
(267,823 posts)I'm sick of the global bullies destroying the lives of ordinary people
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)The advantage to Portugal of ECB funds is that of lower interest rates - about half of market rates I think. That's not a defense : just a fact of life.
Broadly speaking the ECB funds are German taxpayers money. If / when Merkel goes the whole situation could collapse anyway - the Bundesbank is already clamping down.