Protests Go on Across Europe（在线收听）

After a weekend where tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets to denounce corporate greed and budget cuts, some protests are still lingering across Europe.

CRI's Ding Lulu has more.

 
Hundreds of police officers, fire-fighters and members of the Greek coast guard have gathered together in Athens, holding up banners and waving flags in demonstration against the mounting austerity measures in Greece.

Dimitris Georgatzis is the President of the Hellenic Police Association.

"We are forced to come out to the streets to protect our dignity. Services are not operating as they should be, because there is a cutback in funding with the result that people are blaming police officers of who are not to blame."

Meanwhile, activists in Frankfurt are continuing their protest in front of the European Central Bank, sleeping overnight in a make-shift tent city outside the ECB headquarters.

And they are not alone.

In Britain, protesters, angry with what they view as 'corporate greed,' have also begun making their tent city more organised on day three of their occupation in London.

Around 100 tents have been pitched around St Paul's Cathedral, a stone's throw from the London Stock Exchange.

Demonstrators there say they have been inspired by what took place earlier this year in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

"we are in solidarity with the people of Cairo who threw off an oppressor. But that oppressor, Mubarak, was bankrolled by companies that are based in this city…those companies want a part of what's happening now, so they need to stand their ground. And one of the reasons they found it so hard to throw off their oppression, and for us too, is because the companies that are based here are bankrolling oppression."

Meanwhile, Portugal's two largest umbrella unions are now proposing that their member unions hold a general strike to protest the Portuguese government's austerity plans.

Those cuts are needed to meet the terms of Portugal's 78 billion euro EU/IMF bailout.

Many European Union leaders are on record as saying they understand the frustration people are voicing, promising to make the financial sector share the pain in dealing with the debt crisis.

EU leaders are expected to ask the private sector, which already agreed to take a 21 percent cut on Greek bonds in July, to take an even bigger loss when they meet this coming weekend to discuss making banks beef up their capital buffers.

For CRI, I'm Ding Lulu.