Portugal’s bank holidays are being taken away.

This edition of European Voice is being published a day early because Ascension Day (17 May) is a public holiday in Belgium and, for good measure, the European Union institutions are also closed on Friday (18 May). Ascension Day is a public holiday in Portugal as well and the Portuguese had better savour it since public holidays there are being cut from 14 to ten.

Not content with slashing public-sector wages and raising taxes, the Portuguese government has devised another austerity measure: to do away with four holidays for a five-year period, starting in 2013. Two are commemorations of nationhood: 1 December, which marks Portuguese independence from Spain in 1640, and 5 October, which marks the formation of the Portuguese Republic in 1910. Two are religious holidays – All Saints’ Day on 1 November, and Corpus Christi, which falls 60 days after Easter.

Click Here: Fjallraven Kanken Art Spring Landscape Backpacks

The in-no-way-desperate measure, which is supposed to boost productivity, was taken only after discussion with the Vatican. So all of Portugal’s masters (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Pope – not necessarily in that order) are involved in trying to revive the Portuguese economy.

Is it any surprise that celebrations of Portuguese independence are diminishing?