As the country’s political parties start launching manifestos ahead of looming elections, international media focused on the massive concentration of people who turned up in Lisbon on Sunday for a march against austerity.
Website peoplesworld.org said the event had to be taken in context to what is happening in Greece and neighboring Spain, suggesting: “It will soon be seen if this presages a general cross-border movement against neo-liberal austerity programs”.
Outlining the troubles faced in Portugal during the world’s economic crisis, the website took a fresh view of Passos Coelho’s fated words to the young unemployed in 2012.
“When faced with the problem of massive unemployment among young adults, even those with university educations, Prime Minister Passos Coelho could think of no better idea for dealing with this than urging young Portuguese citizens to emigrate to the former Portuguese colonies of Brazil and Angola.
This annoyed these other countries, as he had not thought to inform them that he planned to ship them his country’s unemployed”, wrote Emil Schepers.
