Spanish police against austerity

This video is called ‘Madrid miner crackdown will fuel Spanish protests’.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Spanish police and fighters join cuts protest

Monday 16 July 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

Firefighters, police in plainclothes and civil servants tried to march on Spain’s parliament today to protest against stinging austerity measures.

But they were blocked by heavily armoured police in full riot gear manning layers of metal fences protecting the legislature.

Police got in shoving matches with several thousand protesters in the latest in a series of demonstrations against austerity measures announced last week by right-wing Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

Firefighters wore black helmets and some of the police who took part wore shirts identifying them as union reps.

The austerity measures include the axing of one of 14 pay packets most civil servants get each year – the one right before Christmas.

Their wages had already been cut by 5 per cent in 2010.

The government plans to slash spending by nearly a tenth and raise taxes to reduce its budget deficit by €56 billion (£45bn) by 2015 as it strives to achieve targets imposed on it by its European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund creditors.

Madrid says €34bn (£27bn) of the total will come from higher taxes and the rest from cuts, but the total doesn’t appear to the €65 billion that the government approved on Friday.

It said that separate increased energy taxes will be announced later.

Spanish Workers Protest Austerity Measures: here.

Raging Youth Unemployment Fuels Fears of Social Collapse in Spain: here.

Spanish protesters mourn “death” of civil service: here.