Parliament protest against spending cuts

SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Tuesday December 21 2010

PUBLIC service workers demonstrated outside the regional parliament on Tuesday as MPs approved budget cuts of €800 million.

by JAMES TWEEDIE

Members of the regional separatist Intersindical Canaria, the left-wing CO.BAS and the anarchist CNT trade unions protested outside the parliament building in the centre of the regional capital Santa Cruz.

Six members of the IC, including regional Union Action Secretary Antonio Sardá (pictured, to the left), briefly chained themselves to a lamppost to symbolise their enslavement to EU-dictated austerity measures.

Voting down various amendments from the Socialist Workers' Party, regional president Paulino Rivero's ruling coalition of the nationalist Canarian Coalition (CC) conservative Peoples' Party (PP) approved the 2010 Autonomous Community General Budget Bill.

The legislation will see cuts of €200 million to the regional education budget and €300 million to healthcare in a region with a population of just two million people.

The health cut equals almost 12 per cent of last year's budget – proportionately largest such cut among the autonomous regions of Spain this year – and could see 2,000 nurses made redundant while junior doctors face a major pay cut.

Speaking before the final vote, Mr Sardá warned that if the budget law was passed the Canaries would see its third general strike in less than a year.

The strike warning echoed that of the biggest two national unions the CCOO and UGT, who held anti-cuts protests across Spain on Saturday.

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