Demonstrators
raise their arms during an assembly outside Madrid's Parliament October 23,
2012, as the debate for the 2013 budget goes on inside.(Reuters/Susana Vera)
Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/spain-protests-parliament-budget-madrid-091/
Thousands have taken to the streets of the Spanish
capital, just outside the Parliament building, to protest their government’s
latest bid to further cut spending in 2013.
Cordoned off by police riot vans, the crowd outside the
government headquarters in Madrid yelled slogans lambasting further austerity
measures and political corruption, demanding the resignations of the deputies
of both the ruling conservative Popular Party and the opposition Socialists.
"People in the street feel like [lawmakers] don't
respect us," Noelia Urdialesa, a care assistant, told the AFP. "They
are making cuts in health and education, affecting the most vulnerable."
Earlier in the day, students also staged an
anti-austerity protest against new cuts to education that are expected in the
2013 budget, which will lead to larger class sizes and higher tuition fees.
Approximately $6.5 billion has been cut from education
funding in Spain since 2010.
Politicians, meanwhile, are debating a new budget plan
that would add an additional €39 billion in savings, as part of the plan to
reduce spending by €150 billion between 2012 and 2014 with pay cuts and tax
rises.
Speaking at the start of the debate, Finance Minister
Cristobal Montoro said the draft budget "aimed to combat the
crisis," adding that it was a budget that would make "2013
the last year of recession for Spain."
But people outside do not believe that reaching such
targets is even a remote possibility.
“Those deficit targets are impossible to meet. Everybody
knows that, so the government is counting on the EU to ease those targets. But
the problem is that easing the targets does not mean that the government will
ease their austerity policies,” journalist Miguel-Anxo Murado told RT.
This is very difficult, as Spain’s economy continued to
shrink in the third quarter, according to central bank estimates Tuesday. This
is the fifth quarter in a row that Spain's economic output has shrunk.
In late September during similar protests, 38 people were
arrested and 64 injured when officers clashed with protesters demonstrating
against austerity cutbacks and tax hikes.
This time, no casualties have been reported.
More protests outside Parliament are planned for Thursday
and Saturday.
Demonstrators
gather outside Parliament as the debate for the 2013 budget goes on inside
Parliament in Madrid October 23, 2012. (Reuters/Susana Vera)
A demonstrator
(C) wearing a Guy Fawkes mask does the Nazi salute as he holds a placard
depicting a EU flag with a swatiska in his centre as he takes part in a protest
against government's austerity reforms and the public payment of bank's debts
on October 23, 2012 in Madrid. (AFP Photo/Dominique Faget
Reuters/Susana
Vera
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