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Thousands protest Portuguese austerity plan
AFP - Sunday, May 30
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LISBON (AFP) - – Tens of thousands of public and private sector workers took to the streets of the Portuguese capital Saturday to protest austerity measures the government has enacted to avert a Greek-style debt crisis.
"Stop the rise in unemployment", "No to austerity" and "Those responsible for the crisis should pay for it", read some of the placards held up by demonstrators.
Union organisers claimed nearly 300,000 people had joined the march in Lisbon, with people bussed in from around the country. Police declined to give a crowd estimate.
"We want the exceptional measures, such as the rise in the value added tax and personal income tax, to be tied to a calendar and form part of a long-term strategy," Manuel Carvalho da Silva, the secretary general of the leading CGTP union, told AFP.
As investors piled pressure on Greece, Portugal's minority Socialist government scrambled to slash its public deficit -- at 9.4 percent last year one of the highest in the eurozone -- with a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes.
The austerity measures, which include salary cuts for public employees and a public hiring freeze, aim to cut the deficit to half that level next year, and get Portugal back under the eurozone's three-percent limit in 2013.
The government survived a confidence vote called earlier this month by the CGTP's political allies, the Communists, over the austerity programme.
"We say no to these measures in the interest of the workers and we hope that some of them will be withdrawn," said Silva, adding that the CGTP did not rule out action to fight the measures, alluding to a possible general strike.
"The stronger the mobilisation is on Saturday, the better position we'll be in to call a strike," said Liberio Domingues, of the CGTP's leaders.
The CGTP believes the austerity measures benefit investors at the expense of workers.
"We don't want Portuguese society to slump into indifference and resign" itself to the measures, said Silva.
The second-largest union, the UGT, which is closer to the Socialists, refused to join Saturday's demonstration.
The austerity programme increased value added tax by one percentage point to 21 percent and brought in a new profits tax.
The government is also to freeze major public works such as a new Lisbon airport.
Portugal's deficit in 2009 came to 9.4 percent, one of the highest in the eurozone and way above the European Union's three percent limit.
Prime Minister Jose Socrates said "there was no alternative" to the package of austerity cuts, the second ordered since the start of the year.
"The truth is that the situation on the financial markets completely changed the rules of the game," he said, adding that Portugal must produce results by the end of the year.
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