Government consultant: Austerity is ‘doing what we must do’
“Austerity is not an option for us. It’s doing what we must do to recover confidence and finance ourselves abroad, as is normal in a monetary union”, the government’s senior consultant António Borges told journalists.
Austerity for Portugal is “not an option” but a matter of “doing what we must do”, senior government consultant António Borges said on Tuesday 26 June.
“Austerity is not an option for us. It’s doing what we must do to recover confidence and finance ourselves abroad, as is normal in a monetary union”, the banker and academic told journalists.
The Portuguese executive’s top consultant for the ongoing privatisation program added that the 13-month-old EU-IMF bailout was being “conducted well” by the centre-right administration and that he was “confident” Lisbon could return to financial markets late next year, as foreseen.
But “we’re not there yet”, he cautioned on the sidelines of an international political studies conference in Estoril, while stressing that “this is not the time to soften (austerity) measures and desist from some things we’re doing, because otherwise we’ll never make it”.
Borges said that ongoing belt-tightening in Portugal and across Europe was “indispensable” to regaining market confidence.
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mattus
Although i agree with austerity, I also see that the Portuguese government is putting the onus on the average citizen while allowing top Government employees to glide under the radar with bloated salaries. In order for this government to have any credibility, it needs to trim the fat off the top.