UK coalition to adopt fiscal cuts

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=127518§ionid=351020601


UK`s new coalition government will slash public spending by £ 6.0 billion as parts of its scheme to rein in the bloated budget deficit of £ 156.1 billion.

The details of the blueprint by Liberal Democrats and the Conservative coalition will be formally announced on Monday and, according to the Sunday Times newspaper, Britain's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will have to shoulder the hefty burden of the initial cuts, which has been estimated at £900 million.

"Tomorrow we're setting out where we'll make six billion pounds worth of savings -- and every day after that we will make sure that the most vulnerable in society are protected from cuts," claimed the new Prime Minister David Cameron, quoted by the popular tabloid News of the World.

The move comes as the UK is grappling with the deepest recession in 60 years and the budget deficit has soared to £156.1 billion between 2009 and 2010, equivalent to 11.1 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

According to the plans, budgets of advisory bodies as well as civil servant benefits such as flights and taxis and hotel facilities will also be shrunk in a bid to save £513 million.

Treasury Minister David Laws, meanwhile, said that the country faces an "age of austerity".

The government has also envisaged plans to slash between 300,000 and 700,000 public sector jobs in years to come.

Spaniards protest wage cut plans

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=126747§ionid=351020605



Thousands of people in Spain have protested against the government's new austerity measures aimed at rescuing the country's fragile economy.

Over 15,000 Spaniards took to the streets of Madrid on Sunday, demanding a national strike against Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's deficit-reduction plan.

The demonstration comes a day before the May 17-19 summit of EU, Latin American and Caribbean leaders in the Spanish capital.

It also follows the General Union of Workers' (Union General de Trabajadores) call for a public sector general strike in early June.

Zapatero's spending cuts are expected to save about 15 billion Euros ($19bn) in two years.

They are also aimed at reducing the current 11.2% deficit of the gross domestic product to 3% in 2013.

To reach that goal, Spanish people must tolerate a 5% cut in public sector salaries, a partial freeze on pensions and the scrapping of a 2,500-euro payout to parents for the birth of children.

Unions and non-governmental organizations, which had organized the rally, however, believe that the new plans threaten the rights of workers and pensioners.

They also say that in order to rein in Spain's huge budget deficit, the government must overhaul the country's current economic system.

"We want an alternative (plan) and the transformation of the system. This crisis is a deep crisis of the system, deep and damaging, dramatic, as everyone understands," said a union member, Julio Cesar Sanz Polo.

Also on Sunday, a new poll revealed that Spain's conservative opposition has more than doubled its lead over the ruling party, since Zapatero imposed the new austerity measures.

According to the Spanish media, the wage cut measure was the first since General Francisco Franco's dictatorship ended in 1975.