Portuguese Slam EU Sanctions
© AP Photo/ Francisco Seco
On July 12, EU finance ministers launched a deficit sanctions procedure for Portugal and Spain for their failure to improve their financial performance and stick to budget deficit rules. Lisbon and Madrid have until July 23 to comply and avoid sanctions. Sputnik discussed the situation with several people in Lisbon familiar with the matter.
© AP Photo/ Francisco Seco
António Ramos, pensioner
“They are doing us a great injustice. They are using sanctions against small countries, which are forced to pay, while they [the EU] call all the shots. Each time they see us on the brink of a precipice they are always ready to push us down.”
Fátima, office worker
“Using sanctions against us is not the right way to go. How are we going to ride out of this mess? This is the only question I’d like to ask our government. On the one hand, we pay, on the other they are slashing our social funds, etc. We’ll never be able to move forward.”
Sergio Carqueja, technician
“With these sanction things will go from bad to worse. Well, maybe the present government and the one we had before did not do enough to get things right, but trading accusations will not help us a little bit. They need to come together to solve this problem, they need to lend us a hand.”
Rui Madeira, entrepreneur
“I’m against any sanctions and I think we should make our voice heard in a referendum. I’m not saying that Portugal should leave the EU, but I still believe that we need to find a way to stand up to these influential European ‘giants.’”
Rui Maderira added that the Portuguese people must let Brussels know that they will never agree to this and that the EU can’t push around the smaller countries just like it did when Portugal joined the EU in 1986.
“They won’t be able to pull this off again,” Riu said.
Miguel Moniz, waiter
“Sanctions will make us even poorer while taxes will keep going up. I don’t think we should see this as ‘necessary evil’ because we are already at the bottom of a financial abyss and will have to work real hard to ride out of it.”
Meanwhile, a number of opposition leftwing parties are already campaigning to inform the people about the consequences of Portugal’s further membership in the EU.
The Alternative Socialist Movement, which is in opposition to the present government, described the proposed sanctions as an attempt by technocrats in Brussels and Frankfurt to enforce even tougher austerity measures on Portugal and Spain that will ”speed up the process of pauperization of the Portuguese people.”
The ASM is calling for a political platform to be established immediately to hold a nationwide referendum on Portugal’s possible exit from the Eurozone and the EU in general.
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