The Commission’s report on employment and social developments is a wake up call for the European leaders. The report documents an explosive increase of poverty and unemployment amongst the most productive age groups, while stressing that finding a job is not always enough to escape destitution, since they tend to be badly paid positions.
The dramatic situation experienced by the Greek people in recent years is not unique after all, since according to the European Commission, most countries are experiencing similar problems due to the crisis.
The austerity path, which the dominant European leaderships has chosen as a method of tackling the crisis and as a unique solution to improve competition, is officially proven to cause tremendous collateral human casualties.
The half-measures that are being used as an antidote are clearly not only able to improve the situation, but rather they are constantly making things worse. The report explains how in many countries the social protection systems are either collapsing or barely functioning, with the mixture of unemployment and poverty becoming increasingly more explosive.
It is no coincidence that ahead of the European elections many are warning of the ever-increasing depreciation of the common European vision and the rise of euro-skeptics and the far right, which are taking advantage of this climate of misery and distress. When there are almost 27 million unemployed and millions of lost jobs in recent years, it should be clear to the erity advocates that their recipe is not paving the way to exit the crisis, but rather it is causing social disarray.
Now that there is still time left, the dominant European leaders must understand that a Europe of poverty and social destitution can neither play the role they want, nor its historic role as one of the dominant forces on the planet.
The upcoming European elections and the political pressure they create are an opportunity to at least relax the stifling financial austerity in order to create the conditions for a surge in growth. Otherwise, it is very likely that they div out that while statistics and divs imrove, societies are falling apart and the vision of a united Europe is giving way to extreme nationalisms.
TO VIMA
