As inflexible in mentality as in the crisis

The current crisis in Portugal isn't just about numbers, it's also about people's mentalities, writes the tabloid Correio da Manhã: "You've only got to look at the outraged reactions to the new system of geographic mobility in the public sector. The government's idea: if there's no work where they live, civil servants must move where they're needed. In fact there's nothing simpler: if you have to choose between moving and unemployment, especially in a country that's as small as a chamber pot, no reasonable person will give it a second thought. Particularly if you've got a family to feed. But in Portugal people have a unique take on things: the dream of the average Portuguese is to live on the first floor, work on the second, take your holidays on the third and retire to the old age home on the fourth. And when the time comes, to have the undertakers up on the fifth. ... Reforming the country isn't hard, but changing people's mentalities is all the more difficult."

» full article (external link, Portuguese)
More from the press review on the subject » Society, » Portugal
All available articles from » João Pereira Coutinho
Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis

» To the complete press review of Friday, February 17, 2012