Europe | Anti-austerity politics

Fudging the revolution

Italy and Portugal are leading a revolt against EU austerity, sort of

|LISBON, ROME AND MADRID

AUGUSTO SANTOS SILVA, the foreign minister of Portugal’s three-month-old Socialist government, is a mild-mannered sociologist, not a firebrand. But this month he found himself swept up in the defiant anti-austerity mood that has been spreading across southern Europe. Portugal had just been chastised by the European Commission for submitting a budget that missed the 3% of GDP deficit limit the euro zone imposes on its members (the commission projected it would hit 3.4%).

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Fudging the revolution”

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From the February 20th 2016 edition

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