Merkel to visit Portugal to endorse govt.’s austerity measures

PanARMENIAN.Net - German Chancellor Angela Merkel flies to Lisbon on Monday, Nov 12, bringing her personal endorsement for a government battling to cut deficits under the terms of a German-backed bailout as Portugal suffers its deepest slump since the 1970s, Reuters reported.

"Portugal is meeting the commitments it has assumed very well," the chancellor told Portuguese broadcaster RTP on Sunday - a vote of confidence fellow conservative Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho will welcome, as he presses compatriots to take more pain and tries to distance Portugal from troubled Greece.

According to Reuters, Merkel can expect less enthusiasm from the premier's opponents now that stoic Portuguese patience with austerity, once much remarked on, has begun to fray; but she can expect a largely polite reception, without the tear gas and Nazi taunts which greeted her on the streets of Athens a month ago. The visit, her first such direct government meeting in Portugal since she took office seven years ago, may also serve her interests back home, by demonstrating to German voters that cash they put in to eurozone rescue funds is being well used.

Passos Coelho blames Lisbon's debt crisis on overspending by previous governments and says its only option now is to keep to budget goals set under last year's 78-billion-euro bailout deal.

"Today, we would be living through far, far greater difficulties if our European partners, including Germany, had not helped with the loans we have received," he said last week.

Merkel will be confronted by some protests from Portuguese fed up with austerity and whose tolerance of spending cuts and tax hikes seemed to snap as summer ended a couple of months ago. A government proposal to raise social security contributions prompted the country's biggest demonstrations in years.