If nothing has been learned from the mistakes committed in the past, then it is not just a question of incompetence, irresponsible and ideological blindness: It is a conduct of profound disrespect for the Portuguese and a betrayal of Portugal.
The storm that was possible to predict at the end of 2014
and already overshadowed Portugal in October 2015,
started to wreck havoc in the country this week.
The "contraption" budget destroyed the (fragile)
but difficult accumulated external credibility
built up over the past four years,
in just a few days,
discrediting the country in front of its creditors,
spooked investors away
and shot-up the interest rate.
Nothing of the above should actually come as a surprise,
in a government,
as Rui Ramos stressed clearly,
that is dependent on the extreme left for political assistance
to govern a country, which is dependent on EU financial assistance.
But even this sad soap opera, which we are forced to witness,
can not be considered unexpected,
it is, nevertheless highly frustrating.
It is difficult to accept that,
just over four years after the socialists,
who led Portugal to bankruptcy
and had to beg for external assistance,
in the form of an international bailout programme,
with strict austerity measures,
many of the very same political protagonists of the bankrupcy,
are basically repeating the same recipe
for another announced disaster.
As much as the enthusiasts of this strange political,
unelected "contraption", called government,
with their constant blah-blah-blah of the "turning of a new page"
and entering into a glorious "new age",
while resisting to face Portugal´s reality,
the raw truth of the tragedy is,
there is not enough money to pay for more socialism.
Repeating the same policies
(by becoming an enemy of private investment,
destroying international trust and credibility,
by submitting completely irresponsible budget drafts to Brussels)
and hoping that this time,
the results would be different
from the previous (bankruptcy),
is in the least irresponsible
and unwise.
João César das Neves very timely alerts,
highlighting the parallels between 2016 and 2008:
"Eight years ago, when the world was on the brink of the abyss,
the portuguese state budget for 2009 contained
"the largest increase in the public sector since 2001",
according to a headline in the DN newspaper of 15 October 2008.
The next day, the DN ensured that
"social benefits were the highest increase since 2003".
Times have change but the same policies remain
and, despite the global financial instability,
the budget for 2016 repeats the promises of 2009.
The result may not be very different either.
At the time, the deficit envisaged in the document
was 2.2% of the GDP for 2009,
just like that shown for this year.
It´s important to remember that the actual figure
turned out to be 9.8% of the GDP, just seven years ago. "
A situation that has aggravated in 2016 by the government
appearing to operate without the finance minister. Mario Centeno,
who is a respectable figure on the national academic scene
but notoriously weightless,
to be able to impose order on the PS machine,
where he seems to be a mere disoriented extra
within a medium where he is a complete "foreigner".
Centeno has been successively rebuked
and unauthorized in public,
and it was certainly with regret and some shame
that he was forced to submit to the European institutions
unreliable, ill-founded documents.
Ironically, in the current government sphere,
it has been up to an independently elected deputy, Paulo Trigo Pereira,
who has been able to show some independence of spirit
and intellectual independence, despite his position.
Given the drama of the recent weeks,
it is indeed difficult not to think that the country would,
after all, perhaps be better off with a Finance Minister
like Pereira rather than Centeno.
But more than the personal case of the Minister of Finance,
what is at stake is Portugal
and the repetition of the regrettable path
which led to bankruptcy and the subsequent application
of an external rescue programme in 2011,
with strict austerity measures.
If NOTHING had been learnt from the mistakes made in the past,
all that remais is incompetence, irresponsibility
and ideological blindness:
it is a course of profound disrespect
to the Portuguese and a complete betrayal of Portugal.
Based on an article by André Azevedo Alves, Professor at the Institute of Political Studies of the Portuguese Catholic University, published in the Observador Newspapaer of 13th February 2016
Nothing of the above should actually come as a surprise,
in a government,
as Rui Ramos stressed clearly,
that is dependent on the extreme left for political assistance
to govern a country, which is dependent on EU financial assistance.
But even this sad soap opera, which we are forced to witness,
can not be considered unexpected,
it is, nevertheless highly frustrating.
It is difficult to accept that,
just over four years after the socialists,
who led Portugal to bankruptcy
and had to beg for external assistance,
in the form of an international bailout programme,
with strict austerity measures,
many of the very same political protagonists of the bankrupcy,
are basically repeating the same recipe
for another announced disaster.
As much as the enthusiasts of this strange political,
unelected "contraption", called government,
with their constant blah-blah-blah of the "turning of a new page"
and entering into a glorious "new age",
while resisting to face Portugal´s reality,
the raw truth of the tragedy is,
there is not enough money to pay for more socialism.
Repeating the same policies
(by becoming an enemy of private investment,
destroying international trust and credibility,
by submitting completely irresponsible budget drafts to Brussels)
and hoping that this time,
the results would be different
from the previous (bankruptcy),
is in the least irresponsible
and unwise.
João César das Neves very timely alerts,
highlighting the parallels between 2016 and 2008:
"Eight years ago, when the world was on the brink of the abyss,
the portuguese state budget for 2009 contained
"the largest increase in the public sector since 2001",
according to a headline in the DN newspaper of 15 October 2008.
The next day, the DN ensured that
"social benefits were the highest increase since 2003".
Times have change but the same policies remain
and, despite the global financial instability,
the budget for 2016 repeats the promises of 2009.
The result may not be very different either.
At the time, the deficit envisaged in the document
was 2.2% of the GDP for 2009,
just like that shown for this year.
It´s important to remember that the actual figure
turned out to be 9.8% of the GDP, just seven years ago. "
A situation that has aggravated in 2016 by the government
appearing to operate without the finance minister. Mario Centeno,
who is a respectable figure on the national academic scene
but notoriously weightless,
to be able to impose order on the PS machine,
where he seems to be a mere disoriented extra
within a medium where he is a complete "foreigner".
Centeno has been successively rebuked
and unauthorized in public,
and it was certainly with regret and some shame
that he was forced to submit to the European institutions
unreliable, ill-founded documents.
Ironically, in the current government sphere,
it has been up to an independently elected deputy, Paulo Trigo Pereira,
who has been able to show some independence of spirit
and intellectual independence, despite his position.
Given the drama of the recent weeks,
it is indeed difficult not to think that the country would,
after all, perhaps be better off with a Finance Minister
like Pereira rather than Centeno.
But more than the personal case of the Minister of Finance,
what is at stake is Portugal
and the repetition of the regrettable path
which led to bankruptcy and the subsequent application
of an external rescue programme in 2011,
with strict austerity measures.
If NOTHING had been learnt from the mistakes made in the past,
all that remais is incompetence, irresponsibility
and ideological blindness:
it is a course of profound disrespect
to the Portuguese and a complete betrayal of Portugal.
Based on an article by André Azevedo Alves, Professor at the Institute of Political Studies of the Portuguese Catholic University, published in the Observador Newspapaer of 13th February 2016
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