What Austerity Looks Like in Lisbon

Most countries wouldn't celebrate a 1.1 percent GDP increase. But for Portugal, where the economy hasn't expanded since 2010, even modest growth is a good sign. In the second quarter, the country's GDP grew and its unemployment rate declined for the first time in two years, dropping from 17.7 to 16.4 percent.

It has been a particularly rough few years for Western Europe's poorest country. Portugal has undergone a series of austerity measures in order to meet the European Union's bailout requirements. While the country has mostly been compliant with a string of new measures, its constitutional court struck down the latest one, a proposal form the center-right government that would have made it easier to fire civil servants, a famously bloated sector of Portugal's economy. It is the third austerity plan blocked by the court in a little more than one year.