葡萄牙的紧缩政策

　　More pain, less gain

　　痛苦更多，收益更少

　　Yet another austerity budget raises concerns about future growth

　　但是另一轮预算紧缩引发了对未来发展的担忧

　　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.

　　在欧元危机到来之前，日子还较为愉快，里斯本政府还将阿尔加维改名为Allgarve，希望吸引讲英语的游客。而如今，聪明的葡萄牙人建议，把整个葡萄牙改名为“穷葡萄牙”（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.

　　财政部长维克多–加斯帕尔（Vitor Gaspar）于10月15日提交的2013年预算草案引发了强烈的抗议和雷鸣般的社论，在这种背景下，这一辛辣的幽默仅仅是对这一草案的委婉回应。为了达成得到三大巨头----欧盟，欧洲央行和国际货币基金组织同意的目标，加斯帕尔想要极大的提高税收，其中包括提高将收入税税率提高三分之一。

　　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.

　　抗议者，经济学家和政客很少如此团结。他们一致将这项计划描述为“残酷的”，“反中产阶级的犯罪”，一颗“财政原子弹”。加斯帕尔称，“这是唯一可能的预算”，质疑这项预算就是要冒险遭受“债务独裁”，葡萄牙会因无限依赖官方债权人受到谴责。但是很少有人会同意他的观点。

　　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.

　　但是大多数选民会同意加斯帕尔的看法，认为如果像极右派提倡的那样进行债务违约的话将会带来“灾难性的”后果。但即使如此，近期成千上万的主流选民还是加强了抗议，他们认为压榨工薪阶层家庭不仅会带来没有必要的伤害，还会扼杀增长。

　　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”.

　　批评者抓住了国际货币基金组织最新的展望，该基金会称，在如今的经济形势下，财政巩固带来的消极影响要比平常的时候更大。社会主义反对者认为，这极为恰当的描述了葡萄牙的困境。除去上月同意增加的一年外，他们想要更多的时间来实现预算目标。而更令总理佩德罗·帕索斯·科埃略担心的是，国际货币基金组织的说法得到了极右派总统阿尼巴尔·卡瓦科·席尔瓦（Anibal Cavaco Silva）的赞成，他曾用写过，“不惜任何代价追求”追求赤字目标是错误的。

　　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”.

　　另一个担忧是联合政府在预算问题上的分歧。芭苏丝·科埃略（Passos Coelho）领导的社会民主党的初级合作伙伴保守人民党想要进一步削减公共开支（2013年预算调整中，新收入占据80%）。两党必须共同投票让议会通过预算。但是加斯帕尔坚持“不允许耍任何花招”。

　　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.

　　有人说，他拒绝妥协更多的是做做样子，而不是出于财政理论。与希腊不同，葡萄牙一直是欧元区里的模范生，在布鲁塞尔和柏林都获得了很多赞赏。如果西班牙政府要求紧急援助，并且开始与三巨头争论进一步的财政紧缩政策是否真正明智，或在出现这种情况的时候，葡萄牙会因此受益。