A Portuguese portrait: one million unemployment, tourism trails, ruinous partnerships with the private

Written by The Week, 18/02/2012

Portugal is today the country with already about one million unemployment, a problems better felt in larger scale in the touristic region by excellence and on which, at the same time, detours are registered in about 300 million Euros in businesses and the public-private partnerships where the State has to pay the privates when the results are lower then the expected. This was the portrait of Portuguese reality done by Miguel Portas in its weekly intervention in the program Conselho Superior at Antena Um radio station.

Commenting the 14 percent rate of unemployment announced by the INE, the largest ever and equivalent to 770 thousand people inscribed as being without employment, the MEP from Unitarian Left (GUE/NGL) elected by the Left Bloc stressed the reality goes beyond because, as the National Statistics Institute recognized, there are more than 200 thousand non declared unemployed, mainly of long term and that already have given up counting with public support for seeking a job. Thus being, the real unemployment rate is close to 20 percent. One of each three young is unemployed, equally reveal the statistics, but also this number, frightening in itself, is "misleading", according to Miguel Portas, because "does not include the young with free internships or miserably payed not in sub-employment situation our in the informal economy". Therefore, the MEP added, "we are before a generation without any present and that, all points to, will pass aside the future".

Miguel Portas also stressed that, for the first time, Algarve is the country region with higher unemployment rate, 17,5 percent. This situation is due to the lower intern and European touristic rate and that can only be solved "changing the policy or counting with the charters coming from China, that does not happen".

In other words, the MEP added, "a country cannot, in any way, only be sun". Before all this, Miguel Portas recalls, the government wishes "the work flexibility" to be the country's solution, "when the numbers in Europe tell exactly the opposite". The elected from LB considers that "cheapen the work, withdraw the right to work and facilitate redundancies in the context of crisis does not create employment; there is only one answer for unemployment: economic growth".

To illustrate his conclusions, Miguel Portas cited the result of an enquire from the European Commission to the small and medium companies of the Union, in which the working costs appear only as the fifth concern to the businessmen. The first one is the lack of clients, that derives from the crisis; the second is the lack and cost of credit, that derives from the crisis; and the third one is management and organization, related with the access to qualified personnel.

"All the measures covering the labour market liberalization not only does not facilitate employment as they ease up redundancies and therefore throw aside", Miguel Portas said, meaning that if there is no changing policy the barrier of one million declared unemployed can be surpassed until the end of the year.

If nothing else, the State notes deviations of 300 million Euros to his disadvantage in the business of public-private partnerships, the alliance where the risk is only on the State side, therefore the taxpayers, and the profit on the privates side. This is, Miguel Portas explained, "when the results are lower than predicted, the State has to compensate the privates; when the results are higher, the privates do not compensate the State".

To Miguel Portas, it is "much cheaper to nationalize the public-private partnerships than to pay all this shamelessness". The MEP's proposed solution: "the company is nationalized and becomes the contract".