Decidi iniciar uma nova rubrica com o título Portugal para o Mundo, porque julgo ser a melhor forma de análise perante a situação de degradação, a todos os níveis da sociedade, em que o meu País contemporâneo se encontra, no fundo, observarmo-nos pelos olhos dos outros.
Comecemos pela Economia. O texto encontrado e merecedor da minha atenção estava no "The New York Times".
"Portugal languished for much of the 20th century on Europe's geographic and cultural margins. From the 1920s until the 1970s, a repressive dictatorship smothered the nation and its economy. Once the center of a global trade empire, Portugal became Western Europe's poorest nation.
After decades of basing its economy on its low labor costs, Portugal was hit hard by the eastward expansion of the European Union and the loosening of trade barriers with Asia. As its economy dragged along as its European neighbors grew during the early part of the past decade, Portugal accumulated large and growing debts. Then when Greece set of a debt crisis across Europe in the spring of 2010, Portugal faced an increasingly skeptical market, which pushed up the interest rates at which it could borrow.
Portugal promised austerity measures to bring down its deficit, but a divided government facing strong labor protests found it difficult to deliver on that pledge. In fact, over the first nine months of the year, the budget deficit of Portugal’s central government widened 2.3 percent from a year earlier to $12.7 billion. Prime Minister José Sócrates, a Socialist, lost his majority in the elections of September 2009 and has had to negotiate everything with an ambitious center-right opposition, including the long-drawn-out budget.
In the fall of 2010, as Ireland's deepening bank debt woes led to a new round of investor skittishness and fears of contagion, European Union officials began to worry that Portugal might be the next weak link in the euro zone chain.
The government’s failure to rein in spending — and its decision to spend on yet more highways and toll roads instead of investments that could produce direly needed economic and export growth — soured relations with the opposition Social Democrats. When market anxieties and consequently higher borrowing costs forced the government to bring in a new round of cuts in September, the Social Democrats, who have a new leader, balked at higher taxes. The government nearly collapsed, further delaying a budget and undermining the nation's credibility in the markets.
On Nov. 26, 2010, Portuguese lawmakers approved a budget plan for 2011 aimed at reassuring nervous lenders that the country could avoid a bailout by meeting its deficit-cutting targets.
The Parliament’s vote came at the end of a tortuous week in which the borrowing costs of several ailing economies that share the euro rose to new highs amid concerns that others would have to follow the example of the Irish government, which capitulated to bond market pressures by requesting rescue money on Nov. 21, 2010.
Portuguese and other European officials firmly rejected reports that Portugal was being pressed by its E.U. partners to accept a bailout to help calm markets. “This is not the position of the ministry,” said Bertrand Benoit, spokesman for the German Finance Ministry.
Another source of concern is a possible rise in social unrest, as the country’s main labor unions have called a general strike to protest the latest austerity measures. The government has called on unions to avoid further crippling the economy.
Portugal remains committed, in principle, to reducing its budget deficit from 9.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2009 to 7.3 percent this year and 4.6 percent in 2011."
in The new York Times: World > Countries and Territories > Portugal
