Stefan Steinberg
globalresearch.ca
May 10, 2013
In recent weeks, debate has been raging in political circles and the media over the merits of implementing austerity measures in Europe. The background to the polemics is the rapidly worsening economic crisis in Europe and the emergence of mass opposition to austerity policies in Europe.
The Italian election in February was the most recent and clearest expression of the mounting hostility to austerity. The unelected technocrat regime of Mario Monti, which had carried out a series of swingeing spending cuts at the behest of the EU and the banks, suffered a devastating defeat. The right-wing populist comedian Beppo Grillo was the initial beneficiary of the broad anti-government sentiment, which exposed the alienation of millions not only from the Monti government, but all of the established parties.
The revolt against austerity in Italy, which could not find progressive expression due to the bankruptcy of the country’s so-called left, is mirrored in other European countries, notably Greece, Spain and Portugal, where millions have taken to the streets in recent months to defend jobs, basic rights and living standards.
Staring economic disaster in the face, the European political elite demonstrates increasing disorientation. Conflicts between individual national bourgeoisies are proving increasingly impossible to resolve and criticism is growing of the German government in particular, which has played the leading role in devising austerity policies since the 2008-09 crash.
In a discussion on the implications of the EU’s austerity policy in Brussels on April 22, European Commission President Manuel Barroso admitted: “I am deeply concerned about the divisions that we see emerging: political extremes and populism tearing apart the political support and the social fabric that we need to deal with the crisis; disunion emerging between the centre and the periphery of Europe; a renewed demarcation line being drawn between the North and the South of Europe; prejudices re-emerging and again dividing our citizens, sometimes national prejudices that are simply unacceptable also from an ethical point of view.”
Barroso’s comments on the escalating tensions in Europe provoked by brutal austerity policies constitute a devastating indictment of the policies pursued by the European Commission which he heads.
Barroso’s warnings of social division and upheaval in Europe have been echoed throughout the European press. In a recent analysis of mass unemployment in Europe titled “And suddenly there’s a Bang,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung cited a sociologist who
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