評論
打印
Austerity in Portugal
葡萄牙的緊縮政策
More pain, less gain
痛苦更多，收益更少
Yet another austerity budget raises concerns about future growth
但是另一輪預算緊縮引發了對未來發展的擔憂
In happier days before the euro crisis, one government in Lisbon rebranded the Algarve as the Allgarve, hoping to appeal to English-speaking tourists. Now a Portuguese wit suggests rebranding the whole country as Poortugal.
在歐元危機到來之前，日子還較為愉快，里斯本政府還將阿爾加維改名為Allgarve，希望吸引講英語的游客。而如今，聰明的葡萄牙人建議，把整個葡萄牙改名為“窮葡萄牙”（poortugal）.
Amid furious protests and thundering editorials, such mordant humour was a restrained response to the draft 2013 budget that Vitor Gaspar, the finance minister, presented on October 15th. To meet the targets agreed to by the “troika” of the European Union, European Central Bank and IMF, he wants “enormous” tax increases, including the raising of average income-tax rates by as much as a third.
財政部長維克多–加斯帕爾（Vitor Gaspar）于10月15日提交的2013年預算草案引發了強烈的抗議和雷鳴般的社論，在這種背景下，這一辛辣的幽默僅僅是對這一草案的委婉回應。為了達成得到三大巨頭----歐盟，歐洲央行和國際貨幣基金組織同意的目標，加斯帕爾想要極大的提高稅收，其中包括提高將收入稅稅率提高三分之一。
Seldom have protesters, economists and politicians been so united in describing the plans: “brutal”, “a crime against the middle class”, a “fiscal atomic bomb”. Few agree with Mr Gaspar’s claim that “this is the only possible budget” and that to question it is to risk being subjected to a “dictatorship of debt” with Portugal condemned to depend on its official creditors indefinitely.
抗議者，經濟學家和政客很少如此團結。他們一致將這項計劃描述為“殘酷的”，“反中產階級的犯罪”，一顆“財政原子彈”。加斯帕爾稱，“這是唯一可能的預算”，質疑這項預算就是要冒險遭受“債務獨裁”，葡萄牙會因無限依賴官方債權人受到譴責。但是很少有人會同意他的觀點。
Yet most voters would agree with Mr Gaspar that to default on the country’s debt, as the radical left advocates, would be “catastrophic”. Even so, recent protests have been swelled by tens of thousands of mainstream voters who believe that squeezing working families is not just unnecessarily painful but is also choking off growth.
但是大多數選民會同意加斯帕爾的看法，認為如果像極右派提倡的那樣進行債務違約的話將會帶來“災難性的”后果。但即使如此，近期成千上萬的主流選民還是加強了抗議，他們認為壓榨工薪階層家庭不僅會帶來沒有必要的傷害，還會扼殺增長。
The critics have latched on to the latest outlook from the IMF in which the fund argues that, in today’s economic climate, fiscal consolidation is having a bigger negative impact on growth than usual. The opposition Socialists believe this perfectly describes Portugal’s predicament. They want more time to meet budget targets, on top of an extra year granted last month. More worrying for Pedro Passos Coelho, the prime minister, is that the IMF line is echoed by President Anibal Cavaco Silva, also from the centre-right, who has written that it is wrong to pursue deficit goals “at any cost”.
批評者抓住了國際貨幣基金組織最新的展望，該基金會稱，在如今的經濟形勢下，財政鞏固帶來的消極影響要比平常的時候更大。社會主義反對者認為，這極為恰當的描述了葡萄牙的困境。除去上月同意增加的一年外，他們想要更多的時間來實現預算目標。而更令總理佩德羅·帕索斯·科埃略擔心的是，國際貨幣基金組織的說法得到了極右派總統阿尼巴爾·卡瓦科·席爾瓦（Anibal Cavaco Silva）的贊成，他曾用寫過，“不惜任何代價追求”追求赤字目標是錯誤的。
Another concern is the rift in the coalition over the budget. The conservative People’s Party, junior partner to Mr Passos Coelho’s Social Democrats, wants more public-spending cuts (new revenues account for 80% of the 2013 fiscal adjustment). The two parties must vote together to get the budget through parliament. But Mr Gaspar insists there is “no room for manoeuvre”.
另一個擔憂是聯合政府在預算問題上的分歧。芭蘇絲·科埃略（Passos Coelho）領導的社會民主黨的初級合作伙伴保守人民黨想要進一步削減公共開支（2013年預算調整中，新收入占據80%）。兩黨必須共同投票讓議會通過預算。但是加斯帕爾堅持“不允許耍任何花招”。
Some say that his intransigence is more for form than for fiscal doctrine. Unlike Greece, Portugal has gained much kudos in Brussels and Berlin for being a model pupil for the euro zone. That could help it if and when the Spanish government requests a bail-out—and starts to argue with the troika about whether ever more fiscal austerity is really sensible.
有人說，他拒絕妥協更多的是做做樣子，而不是出于財政理論。與希臘不同，葡萄牙一直是歐元區里的模范生，在布魯塞爾和柏林都獲得了很多贊賞。如果西班牙政府要求緊急援助，并且開始與三巨頭爭論進一步的財政緊縮政策是否真正明智，或在出現這種情況的時候，葡萄牙會因此受益。 翻譯：孫齊圣
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