Por­tu­gal has an­nounced sev­er­al new aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures, which were met with a call for a huge strike next month. These in­clude re­duc­ing Por­tu­gal's in­come tax brack­ets from eight to five. This re­places a so­cial se­cu­ri­ty tax rise that was shelved due to its deep un­pop­u­lar­i­ty.

Por­tu­gal's largest trade union, the CGTP, called the strike for mid-No­vem­ber to op­pose the lat­est moves. Por­tu­gal must get its deficit be­low the Eu­ro­pean Union's tar­get of three per cent of gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GDP). Yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vi­tor Gas­par al­so un­veiled a four per cent "ex­tra­or­di­nary" tax. With the tax brack­et changes, the av­er­age tax rise should in­crease from 9.8 per cent in 2012 to 13.2 per cent in 2013.

"The ad­just­ment is hard­er than we an­tic­i­pat­ed," Mr Gas­par said, as he al­so raised the un­em­ploy­ment fore­cast for 2013 to 16.4 per cent-up slight­ly from 16 per cent. It was giv­en one more year to re­duce its deficit, af­ter the lat­est quar­ter­ly re­view by in­ter­na­tion­al lenders of the Eu­ro­pean Union, the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund and Eu­ro­pean Cen­tral Bank over­see­ing its 78 bil­lion eu­ro eu­ro­zone bailout.

No ex­tra fi­nance is to be pro­vid­ed be­yond the 78 bil­lion eu­ros in loan guar­an­tees al­ready agreed for the three-year bailout pe­ri­od. The CGTP an­nounced its strike for No­vem­ber 14 with the slo­gan "Against Ex­ploita­tion and Im­pov­er­ish­ment". As in Spain and Greece, Por­tu­gal has seen huge street protests against the aus­ter­i­ty cuts that are need­ed to meet the de­mands of the bailout.

Af­ter huge an­ti-aus­ter­i­ty street protests in Sep­tem­ber, Por­tu­gal de­cid­ed not to raise so­cial se­cu­ri­ty con­tri­bu­tions next year from 11 per cent to 18 per cent, to meet the con­di­tions of Por­tu­gal's in­ter­na­tion­al bailout.

BBC