Unemployment and the rise of instability in Southern Europe

According to the latest Eurostat’s statistics, unemployment rate in Southern Europe is growing rapidly. More specifically, the unemployment rate reached 26.8% in Greece, 26.1% in Spain and 16.5% in Portugal. The corresponding results among young people are more devastating. Apart from the high unemployment rate, the countries of Southern Europe are connected with a common way of life and eternal common cultural heritage. The so jestingly called P.I.G.S. (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) are the global center of attention in the last few years and not for no reason.

Unemployment with the contribution of austerity, budget cuts and reducing of the welfare state has not only financial consequences, but also social and political. Social inequality, poverty and political conflicts threaten the societies in Southern Europe with instability, if there is not an immediate change in the current situation. This can be easily observed and experienced analysts warn that the accumulated social anger may lead to unpredictable situations of democracy subversion.

One of the main features of the crisis is the rise of all forms of violence. The crime rate is increasing while the repression forces are unable to manage it. Thefts and robberies are common. Terrorism is at its peak, recruits new members and attacks more targets. Unfortunately, many people believe that only through armed violence may spill austerity policies.

In the political field we can observe an upsurge of extremist far-right parties that find supporters among frustrated poor people who believe that there is no hope to get it out of the crisis. Given the indignation of citizens against the current political system and using the unemployment as a pretext, they turn citizens (employed or unemployed) against immigrants, instigate brutal violence against innocent people and create an alarming new conservative, xenophobic and racist tendency into society.

Into society we constantly observe conflicts between the population in the wake of ongoing protests, demonstrations and strikes. Social groups are turning against each other resulting in declining social cohesion and creating a gap between citizens. Another highly disturbing phenomenon of our times is the excessive number of suicides. People of all ages commit suicide when they perceive that they do not have the ability to support themselves or their family. In addition, we should not overlook the high number of homeless and poor people who are victims of crisis and unemployment and struggling daily to ensure their survival.

It is obvious that all the above conditions cause abnormal social development. As long as there are long-term unemployed people who are unable to support their families, overqualified young people who cannot enter into labour market or find a proper job, social injustice and inequality, we will experience extreme behavior into the society.

Recently many experts publish several articles that compare Greece to Germany's Weimar Republic and express fear that extreme things will happen. Instability in all fields will be very dynamic and unfortunately unemployment will probably be the main factor of it. All leaders at European level should consider the consequences this may have in global level, and should promote actions to combat unemployment before it is quite late.

Το παρόν άρθρο δημοσιεύτηκε στην ιστοσελίδα Open Society