Thousands of people in Brussels protest against austerity
Brussels (dpa) - More than 10,000 people gathered in Brussels on Thursday for an
anti-austerity protest, the Belga news agency said, as the action snagged public transport in the Belgian capital.
Like many other European
countries, Belgium has had to tighten its financial belt to lower its public deficit and survive the economic crisis gripping the
continent.
Thursday‘s demonstration was called to rally "for spending power, against the freezing of salaries, for the full upholding of
(salary) indexation, and for fairer and more progressive taxation."
Trade unions had expected more than 15,000 people to take part.
The
protesters were due to march through the centre of Brussels. Trade union representatives met in the morning with several Belgian ministers to discuss
their concerns, Belga said.
Out of solidarity, Belgium‘s main broadcaster delayed its news programmes by several seconds.
Protests
were also expected in other parts of the countries, with workers at ArcelorMittal in Liege - a site that is due to see hundreds of jobs lost with
production-line closures - set to go on strike for 24 hours.
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