LISBON: Portugal’s largest trade union CGTP on Wednesday called for action to renegotiate Portugal’s public debt. “The figures of budgetary implementation of the first quarter of the year, with public accounts worsening by 108 million euros (122 million U.S. dollars) compared to the same period of the last year, reveal the urgent need to stop the bleeding of resources that leave the state coffers with a public debt which partly is illegitimate and totally unacceptable,” CGTP said in a statement.
The statement by the trade union headed by Armenio Carlos came a day after the country’s Directorate General for Budget said that the fall in revenue from taxation was influenced by a 0.7 percent drop in indirect taxation.
CGTP said on Wednesday that the state had spent more in interest and debt burdens than in the salaries of all doctors working for the national health service, and teachers from primary and secondary education, It added that funds intended for the payment of unemployment benefits were continuing to fall. “In the framework in which Portugal is the country in the EU in which debt interest weighs the most on GDP, it is urgent to engage in a process of renegotiating of the public debt,” the statement reads.
Portugal’s Socialist government backed by radical leftist parties recently approved its long-term budget, which sees the budget deficit falling to 1.4 percent of GDP next year after 2.2 percent projected for this year and following last year’s 4.4 per cent deficit.
