Pain Bites Into Portuguese Life As Crisis Deepens

Pain bites into Portuguese life as crisis deepens Associated Press Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Updated 8:59 am, Monday, April 8, 2013 LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Serving a frugal lunch in their kitchen not much bigger than a bathroom, Pedro and Elena Baptista spoon stewed chicken feet onto their boiled potatoes and leave the slightly meatier wings for their 12-year-old daughter, Vania, and 7-year-old son, Joao. Across Europe, the long-held belief that the state will always provide for its citizens' well-being is vanishing. In return for rescue loans, governments across the region are slashing spending and raising taxes. Pensioners, schools and government workers are in the crosshairs of the latest planned cuts. Public outrage greeted this year's tax hikes, which even the finance minister conceded were "enormous." The portion of retired people across Europe is quickly expanding and stretching welfare budgets. For Portugal, the outlay on state pensions has risen to 14.5 percent of gross domestic product from 9 percent since 2000, according to the government. Sales taxes have risen sharply, including a hike to 23 percent from 6 percent on electricity; the center-right government has scrapped rent controls; payments to see a doctor in the national health service have risen, as has the cost of public transport; government help to buy medicine has shrunk. Cabral and thousands of others have joined pensioners' lobby group Apre, created last October when the 2013 state budget was unveiled. The school is named for Portugal's great Renaissance poet, and some of the country's most illustrious figures have studied in its thick-walled classrooms with tall windows, including the current president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso. Portugal stripped its education budget by more than 5 percent between 2010 and 2012, according to European Commission figures published last month, making it one of the continent's biggest belt-tighteners. In 2008, a typical high-school teacher might receive an annual net salary of around €20,000, according to the National Federation of Education, which represents school and university staff. A lively neighborhood bookstore close to Lisbon's bullring hosted numerous book signings, poetry readings and art exhibitions in recent years. The Portuguese Association of Hotels, Restaurants and Similar Establishments says some 11,000 of its members shut their business last year when sales tax on food and drink jumped to 23 percent from 13 percent. Almost 6,700 companies filed for bankruptcy last year, a 41 percent increase on 2011, according to a study by credit insurance company Cosec. Ana Martins, AMI's national director for the past 18 years, says people seeking aid used to ask for help finding a job or resolving social or family problems. AMI's assistance center in Olaias, a low-income Lisbon suburb of high-rise apartment blocks, is a 21st-century version of the soup kitchens seen in the Great Depression. "For us, the past year has been the hardest time of our lives," Pedro, the father, says in their small kitchen which doubles as a living room, though it has no sofa or armchairs.