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THE HEAD OF the euro zone finance ministers group has congratulated Portugal on its clean exit from a massive debt-rescue but said it must hold to promised reforms to realise its potential.
“I would like to congratulate Portugal,” Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said as he went into a meeting with his eurozone colleagues.
“They have done a lot of hard work … and are now coming out strongly,” Dijsselbloem said.
“There is still lot of work to be done but if they (stick with reforms), then they have great potential,” he added.
Portugal announced yesterday it was going for a clean exit from its EU-IMF bailout, following in the footsteps of Ireland by foregoing a credit line as it prepares a full return to the financial markets.
“The government decided that we will exit our rescue programme without resorting to any precautionary programme,” Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said.
The Portuguese finance minister is due to brief his counterparts later on Monday on Lisbon’s precise plans.
As the debt crisis deepened, it brought down Greece first in 2010, followed by Ireland and Portugal.
The European Union and the International Monetary Fund came to their rescue but in return for financial aid, the governments had to adopt sting austerity programmes, slashing spending and hiking taxes while at the same time liberalising their economies.
Greece had to be bailed out a second time in 2012 but it has recently made significant headline progress in restoring its public finances.
However its debt burden remains enormous and discussions about further reductions are continuing, with Dijsselbloem saying the Eurogroup would discuss the issue at the meeting.
However, any measures on the debt would have to wait until the second half of the year, he said, repeating the official position.
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Is this like jobsbridge but overseas?
How many billions have the countries mentioned spent on arms and wars in the past few decades alone?
There are thousands of Irish families in severe need, get that sorted before looking overseas for people to help.
we need all our volunteers at home to try and sort our own country out,could we just curtail the do gooding for a while,i think at this stage we are not respected for all our relentless do gooding we do,,we are probably look on as fools in some quarters.
What? Volunteering to help the worlds poorest is a bad thing? Encouraging people to expand their horizons and to help others, while doing good is bad?
Noel we have many volunteers in this country, I’m in my final year studying community development with little job prospects at the min of a job in what I’d like to. I’d rather use my 4 years education in overseas development as a volunteer and gain experience as in Ireland if I were to volunteer in this kind of work people would be saying it’s job displacement which of course it is. Now you see my situation which of the two is more beneficial to me and the community here and overseas, a year overseas working and developing my professional skills or be another statistic on the live register
Large scale aid, corruption, mass immigration along with the other globalisation policy of fractional reserve banking foisted onto the 3rd world thereby creating a massive debt burden have a lot to do with keeping Africa in poverty. The worst thing one can do is strip a country’s people of their will to fight, become resourceful or independent & siphon off the people who are most capable & energetic to effect that change. A draw down of aid, end to mass immigration, whilst fostering help in other ways would in the longer term end the cycle of constant impoverishment in the 3rd world.
How many billions in aid have we sent in addition to the above volunteer efforts for decades. Yet if indigenous Europeans wish to protect their ethnicities, protect their ethnic territories, they are told by the recipients of our generous never-ending aid, that we are evil & racist.
Volunteers me ar*e! They’ve been goin out foreign for the past 50 years and what have the done to help long term??? Nothing!! Leave them fend for themselves for once and they might start getting off their arses and help themselves!
Charity begins at home!
The immigration industry & Immigrant Council of Ireland have deemed your comment to be racist. You are being investigated for hate-speech & thought-crime.
Volunteer my arse, for what? To make some CEO a nice bonus on the back of my hard work or provide a nice election setup to a candidate claiming my work. Thats what it is really about. money ,power ,political movement, not helping people.
Some very disappointing negative opinions around volunteering. I had the pleasure of volunteering in Malawi in a clinical professional capacity for almost 6 months in 2012/13. The opportunity was very worthwhile and I believe one grows and matures in many ways from the experience. I self-funded this time away. Many are unaware that volunteering is very costly. Including opportunity cost and actual costs of flight and daily expenses I estimated that it costed €30,000 for 6 months. On this basis might it be worthwhile that the Irish government perhaps contribute less financially to individual countries but support individuals who wish to go to these countries? Additionally, I would like by law (similar to mat leave) job protection for individuals who volunteer in developing countries. In other words if an employee wants to volunteer abroad the same job protection right are afforded as a female going on mat leave.
So true it ain’t like there’s too many jobs out at home
I am too self obsessed for the volunteering lark but at least I admit it.
Though I would gladly volunteer to help the needy in Australia providing I got my flight, food and accommodation all paid for me.
have your say