Thursday

28th Mar 2024

Portuguese top court strikes again

Portugal's Constitutional Court has for the third time thwarted bailout-related laws, this time overturning a decision making it easier for public sector workers to be fired.

The government had passed a bill on “public sector requalification” giving any worker who could not be placed in a new job after 12 months the choice to stay in training indefinitely, but not to be paid, or to leave and collect unemployment benefits.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

  • It is the third time the Constitutional Court in Portugal rules against the austerity programme (Photo: Pieter Musterd)

The measure would have saved €167 million next year, as part of a larger package of budget cuts required by international creditors in return for the €78 billion bailout.

The court ruled the measure unconstitutional, saying it violates "guarantees of secure employment" and the principle of trust between employer and employee.

Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho will now have to come with an alternative measure to replace this one. Earlier this month, he had warned against a negative verdict, saying it could jeopardize the bailout.

"If we don't have the money to pay salaries and pensions, what do we do?" he said then. "We do what businesses do - cut personnel and lower salaries."

It is the third time this year that the court strikes down austerity-linked measures that also have caused a rift in the coalition government, barely managing to stick together after a major crisis earlier this summer.

Trade unions have meanwhile repeated their calls for Coelho to step down. Armenio Carlos, leader of the country's largest trade union confederation, said the government got "three red cards in a year" and should resign.

Even if the struck-down measure did not have a big financial scope, the court ruling casts doubt on the government's capacity of sticking to the promises it made to slash spending in return for the bailout.

So-called troika officials from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank are due in Lisbon early September to assess how the country is implementing reforms and authorize or delay the payment of the next bailout tranche.

'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told

Italian central banker Piero Cipollone in his first monetary policy speech since joining the ECB's board in November, said that the bank should be ready to "swiftly dial back our restrictive monetary policy stance."

Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

Latest News

  1. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  2. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  3. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  4. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  5. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult
  6. EU unveils plan to create a European cross-border degree
  7. How migrants risk becoming drug addicts along Balkan route
  8. 2024: A Space Odyssey — why the galaxy needs regulating

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us