Europeans vent their anger as cuts bite

A popular backlash is building against cuts to public services and the “internal devaluation” policies that have targeted wages and Europe’s high levels of social protection with the aim of restoring competitiveness to the EU’s highly indebted economies.

This year unemployment is expected to reach record levels of more than 11pc in the eurozone and 10.5pc in the EU. Taking a step away from the statistics, it means that more than 25m Europeans will be unemployed this Christmas.

It is going to get worse. EU forecasts predict that joblessness rates will climb even further, hitting 11pc in the EU and 12pc in 2013. In Greece, unemployment is 23.6pc, and 54pc among young people. One thousand Greeks are losing their jobs every day.

In Spain, once an EU pin-up for growth and a country that was not in debt before the banking crisis, youth unemployment has hit 55pc and the recession is still deepening. Tens of millions of Europeans blame austerity for suppressing demand and acting as a dampener on growth at a time of economic recession triggered by the financial crisis.

The deadly combination of slowdown plus austerity, compounded by economic imbalances built into the EU’s single currency, has pushed countries, especially the southern European economies at the heart of the eurozone debt storm, into what looks like a deep and protracted slump.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9679076/Europeans-vent-their-anger-as-cuts-bite.html