Categories: Economy

in 2018 Portugal continues its race towards full employment

<h4>Portugal has become the best pupil in the euro zone, with economic growth at its highest&comma; unemployment at its lowest&comma; investment on a permanent upward trend&comma; and a budget deficit tending towards zero&period;</h4>&NewLine;All this good news is accompanied by a world first&colon; the electrical energy generated by renewables has exceeded the country's consumption&period; the only black spot&comma; ideological&comma; this one&colon; the policy pursued to achieve these results is still the opposite of that advocated by Brussels and followed by Berlin or Paris&period;&NewLine;The Portuguese Prime Minister's 2018 budget presented to the European Commission at the end of 2017 didn't go down too well&period; The Commission estimated that the required 0&comma;6&percnt; cut in public spending would, according to Brussels' forward calculations, be "only" 0&comma;4&percnt;&period; It's a strange reproach when you consider that Portugal's deficit is now one of the lowest in the eurozone&comma; at 1&comma;4&percnt; in 2017 and is steadily shrinking&period;&NewLine;This small country, on the brink of economic recession and a major social collapse just a few years ago, has been steadily improving its economic and social performance over the past 30 months, much to the chagrin of the leaders of other European countries with liberal policies of fiscal austerity, led by Emmanuel Macron; The latest measures taken by Antonio Costa&comma;s government, much decried by its right-wing opposition, nonetheless appear to be continuing to work in favor of a general improvement&comma;both socially and economically&comma;whether for businesses&comma;investors or middle and working-class employees and pensioners&period;&NewLine;<h4>Stimulus&comma; tax adjustments&comma; minimum wage increases and investment incentives</h4>&NewLine;Whereas in France, taxes on the highest incomes are lowered&comma; corporate taxes are abolished or compensated&comma; while pensions are capped&comma; the Portuguese government has embarked on the opposite tax policy&period; The 2018 Portuguese budget provides for a substantial cut in income taxes for the middle classes&comma; accompanied by a further increase in retirement pensions&period; When it comes to corporate taxation&comma; here too, the Portuguese option is the opposite of France's&colon; introduction of new taxes for all companies with sales in excess of 35 million&semi;euros&period; On the civil servant side&comma; it's the unblocking of job movements and promotions in the civil service that are being put in place&period;&NewLine;The demand-led economic policy that the Portuguese government has been pursuing for the past two and a half years is clearly bearing fruit. This policy is based on boosting consumption by improving the professional and social conditions of Portuguese workers in order to make the country more attractive to investors, improve productivity, enable production to move upmarket, and so on. &NewLine;Unemployment therefore continues to fall&comma; set at 7&comma;8 &percnt; at the end of 2017&comma; while&rsquo&semi;it was at 8&comma;9 &percnt; in France at the same period &lpar;statistics as defined by the International Labor Office&rpar;&period; The minimum wage was raised from 530€ to 557€ in 2017 and will be raised again in 2018 to reach 580€&comma; with the&rsquo&semi;the government's objective of raising it to 600€ in 2019&period; The Portuguese demonstration of improved investment and private employment thanks to higher wages and social benefits is a direct response to the European doxa that business competitiveness must be achieved by cutting or freezing wages and reducing government social spending...&NewLine;<h4>Renewable energies&comma; modernization on the double&colon; what&rsquo&semi;Europe is waiting for&rsquo&semi;to draw inspiration from&quest;</h4>&NewLine;The recent "world first" on the scale of a country of over 10 million inhabitants should serve as an example for political leaders advocating the ecological and energy transition&colon; Portugal produced more electricity from renewables in March 2018 than it consumed&excl; France&comma; a country that declares itself to be a great promoter of this transition&comma; painstakingly reached 16&percnt; of renewable energies in 2017 and will clearly not meet its commitments of 23&percnt; for 2020&period; French electricity production is still based on nuclear power at over 70&percnt;&period; This Portuguese capacity of 103&percnt; of electricity production in renewables is surprising and underlines the country's ability to modernize at a rapid pace &colon; a year earlier&comma; for the month of March 2017&comma; renewables had produced only 6&percnt; of the country's consumption &excl;&NewLine;What Brussels and the majority of Eurogroup leaders don't seem to understand, or want to hear, is quite simple&colon; reducing budget deficits is not just a matter of cutting public spending&comma; on the contrary&period; The more a State boosts its economy by improving the income and social protection of its population&comma; employees&comma; pensioners&comma; companies&comma; the more the State's revenues increase&period; Public spending with sufficient and stable economic growth&comma; of 2&comma;7&percnt; in Portugal in 2017&comma; low unemployment and rising investment is then no more than&rsquo&semi;a minor budgetary adjustment factor&period;&NewLine;Antonio Costa&rsquo&semi;s government has understood this and is applying a policy of economic&comma; social&semi;accompaniment and energy transition&comma; without any particular dogmatism&comma; except that of not blindly bending to a dogma&comma; the privatization of public services&comma; social dumping and the growth of inequalities through the "privatization of public debt" at the expense of social protection&period;&NewLine;Antonio Costa recently made a proposal in Brussels to tax the Califonian net giants in order to consolidate the European budget and better help the regions. All the major countries are having trouble taxing these large American multinationals&comma; the GAFAs &lpar;Google&comma; Amazon&comma; Facebook and Apple&rpar;&period; This could be another way of creating an own resource for the&rsquo&semi;European Union&period;" &NewLine;The "Portuguese miracle" is not a miracle at all, and Europe could - if it were able to overcome its stubbornness - take a look at the success of this small country, which has managed to invent a way out of the crisis based on a better social deal that is still absent from EU policies;In the face of the repeated failures of the economic policies dictated by the European Union - compared with the successes of the government of Antonio Costa - logic would dictate that we should look at this small country, which has been able to invent a way out of the crisis based on a better social deal that is still absent from the policies of the European Union, accompanied by an effective economic recovery;Antonio Costa's government - logic would dictate that a change of course should take place on the old continent's major budgetary orientations&period; Yet this still does not seem to be on the&rsquo&semi;agenda&period; And the slowdown in French&comma; German growth&comma; the decline in investment and consumption in these countries in the first quarter of 2018 clearly signal the fragility of the recent economic recovery in the "pro-Brussels"&period countries;&NewLine;Faced with these contradictions&comma; a phrase attributed to the German scientific genius&comma; Albert Einstein ironically illustrates this inability of the Union&rsquo&semi;leaders to change their economic policies &colon;" Insanity&comma; is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result"&period; In view of the Portuguese results, resisting the madness and trying a different path seems clearly the best way to go&colon; for the good of the population... at the very least&period; But we still need to have this objective&quest;&NewLine;

Next Health and taxation, the grey areas of retirees "

Previous "Prices of renovated apartments soar in Portugal