The Prime Minister announced that that this will be the first Christmas for many years that Portugal has an open horizon ahead, without an accumulation of dark clouds; but warns that it is important to protect what has been achieved with our sacrifices.
Forgetting his three previous Christmas speeches promising that the recovery will happen ‘next year,’ Pedro Passos Coelho filled his Christmas message with cheerful optimism, but did slip in xenophobic warnings of dark external forces at play as in 2015 there are "a number of uncertainties in the external sphere, particularly in the eurozone and Eastern Europe."
"But this will be the first Christmas for many years that the Portuguese will not have an accumulation of dark clouds on the horizon. It will be the first Christmas for many years that we have an open future before us. A lot has changed throughout this period, and finally we begin to reap the fruits of these changes," said the Prime Minister in his most convincing tone, echoing his pronouncements of previous years as he sat by his rather splendid Christmas tree (see image below).
On the prospects for the country in the short and medium term, Pedro Passos Coelho said that there are still "many choices to make to strengthen our present and prepare our future."
"It's very important to protect what we have achieved together with great effort and sacrifice. We do not want to ruin everything. We would rather build a society with more jobs, more justice and less inequalities where there are no privileges in the hands of a small group," he announced to a national audience that would be hard pressed to name one sacrifice made by the ruling elite.
This was the final Christmas message of the current parliament and the prime minister referred to the last three years of years in government as being "strongly noted for its response to the financial collapse of 2011," adding that 2014 has been "an extremely important year."
"We ended the bailout programme with a clean exit without the need for additional assistance. We completed the programme on time in May this year and on our own terms, attesting to the large capacity of the Portuguese to meet major challenges. Even more so when, after we completed the external assistance programme, we had to deal with the need to rescue a major national bank," the prime minister alluding of course to the collapse of Banco Espírito Santo and the hastily arranged government bailout which even now faces legal challenges from BES investors.
Passos Coelho said that, the conclusion of the Troika programme will for many years in our history be a milestone confirming a large national consensus that we want to live in a modern, European and open society.
"After the tremendous difficulties to which we were subjected, we regained our independence and we have put in place a solid recovery process in the country; this is a feat that we should be proud of, each one of us."
It is the prime minister’s view that the country already has entered a new phase of "growth, increased employment and recovery of household income."
"I know that many Portuguese still are dealing with enormous difficulties in their day-to-day lives and that, therefore, it is essential to ensure that everyone feels an improvement in living conditions," he noted.
According to the Passos Coelho who has an election coming up in 2015, there will be "a remarkable recovery in the purchasing power of many Portuguese in 2015, starting with public employees and pensioners." If Passos Coelho can buy off these two groups with targeted tax giveaways, he will reap their votes in a carefully planned 'cash for votes' policy.
The senseless rhetoric continued as it has done for the past years of the PM’s premiership, promising jam tomorrow, well done chaps for all pulling together, jobs, family values, vote for me, it’s tough for all of us you know, justice, family values, etc.
Christmas is not a time to focus on the poor parts of the government’s performance, nor is the PM’s speech an opportunity to say how wonderful the government is.
It is a good time to say ‘thank you’ to the Portuguese people who at least have not taken to the streets in revolt at the highest tax take the country has ever been subjected to, coupled with a lamentable lack of effort from the government in reducing public spending.
There was a pact between the public and the government but it ended up one sided, a situation that Portugal’s Troika of lenders highlighted in its first post-‘end of bailout’ report," ie that the government is good at taxing its citizens but poor at reducing its own spending, the gap being always filled by the impotent taxpayer.
The public has been affected badly by record insolvencies; data from the Ministry of Justice shows that in 2011 the courts decreed 5,663 personal insolvencies, with the number rising to 9,256 in 2012. In 2013 there were over 10,000 cases, and in the first half of 2014, the number was already at a record breaking 5,598 cases.
The ‘open future ahead’ may or not be with Passos Coelho at the helm, many hope so as the opposition leaders are a scarier prospect in the absence of anyone with clear leadership skills, charisma and vision, rather than the current regime characterised by dithering, weakness and opportunism.
For 2013 commentary, see:
http://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/946-portuguese-pm-accused-of-lying-in-christmas-speech
