Demontrators march in downtown Lisbon around the Finance Ministry headquarters during a nation wide strike against further austerity policies applied to an already deeply depressed economy, against loss of sovereignty and internal decision making to foreign creditors' commands. Protesters demand that the Portuguese government consults with it's constituency rather than with creditors, markets, private enterprise or lobbies.
Populations in Portugal and Europe face increasingly aggressive policies under foreign creditors' demand for an economy reframe that prescribes a levelling of most social and labor rights, conquered in the last century, to make room for private enterprise over public property and resources.
Public functions and services are increasingly extinct. Labor is devalued and basic public services are privatised to meet foreign creditors' demands. Access to once public basic services, still supposedly insured by taxpayers, is at jeopardy.