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As EU ministers met in Budapest to iron-out a $115 bn usd Portugese bailout, an estimated 40,000 people, led by trade unions, held a massive peaceful demonstration Saturday to protest austerity measures.
There were placards declaring "No austerity" and demanding "fair pay and jobs," trashing bankers and Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicholas Sarkozy.
"We want jobs, growth, our welfare state intact, and we are not going to pay for bankers' mistakes," labor leader John Monks told the crowd. "The ministers are locked into this orthodoxy that there has to be suffering before everybody can have some growth. I think this is completely wrong," he told AFP before the march.
A Hungarian currently leads the EU's president.
