austerity measures

Portugal to slash 30,000 state jobs in austerity drive

4 May 2013

Portugal’s prime minister said on Saturday that the government aimed to slash 30,000 public sector jobs as part of a sweeping package of spending cuts to satisfy international creditors.

4:15AM

Italy’s anti-austerity vote provokes unease in Germany

28 Feb 2013

Dubbed an “anti-Merkel” result, the German chancellor has refrained from commenting publicly on the Italian elections’ outcome but two top-table officials stressed it was paramount for Rome to...

2:53AM

Grillo rejects Bersani's call for Italy coalition

28 Feb 2013

To have any chance to govern, Bersani's bloc needs to bring in Grillo or join with former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who lost to Bersani by less than half a percentage point in the lower...

2:55AM

EU agrees multi-year budget

9 Feb 2013

EU leaders finally reached a seven-year budget accord Friday after marathon talks driven by sharp differences over the bloc’s priorities for the rest of the decade.

6:02AM

Mursi delays IMF loan amid austerity measures as crisis deepens

12 Dec 2012

A vital US$4.8 billion (HK$37.2 billion) International Monetary Fund loan to Egypt will be delayed until next month, its finance minister said yesterday, intensifying the political crisis gripping...

3:38AM

A generation sacrificed

11 Dec 2012

Crushed by an austerity squeeze and towering unemployment, millions of Europeans joined the ranks of the newly poor this year in a crisis that showed no mercy for the old, women or children.

2:55AM

Opinion

Alex Lo

Chen Guangcheng misled by his new right-wing 'friends'

1:26AM

Tom Holland

The yuan hasn't overtaken the HK$ quite yet, Mr Chan

4:40AM

UK finance minister says more austerity measures will avert disaster

Finance minister George Osborne yesterday warned Britons that they faced an extra year of austerity measures, saying that reversing belt-tightening plans now would be a "disaster".

5:01AM

Can the US economy survive the fiscal cliff?

One certainty about life, in addition to Keynes' death and taxes, is that everything changes. And no more so than in the financial environment.

2:58AM

UK government to slash welfare payments by another £10 billion

Britain's government will slash the welfare bill by a further £10 billion (HK$125 billion) as it seeks to tame a massive deficit, finance minister George Osborne said yesterday.

4:41AM

FRANCE

Thousands in Paris denounce EU ‘austerity’ pact

Tens of thousands of left-wing protesters took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to denounce EU-driven austerity measures being pushed on member states.

4:49PM

ITALY

Italian unions strike against PM Monti's spending cuts

Two of Italy’s biggest unions marched through Rome on Friday to protest against Prime Minister Mario Monti’s cuts in public spending as opposition grows to austerity policies.

9:30PM

FRANCE

France unveils toughest ever budget as debt levels soar

France on Friday unveiled action to plug a 37-billion-euro hole in its public finances with the toughest package of tax rises and spending cuts since the economic downturn.

8:49PM