Written by Lucia Pradella.
Unemployment has reached unprecedented heights in Western Europe — wages are declining and attacks on organized labour are intensifying. Nearly a quarter of Western Europe’s population, about 92 million people, was at risk of poverty and social exclusion in 2013. That’s nearly 8.5 million more people than before the crisis. The number of working poor — employed workers in households with an annual income below the poverty threshold — is growing, and austerity is going to make things much worse in the future.
Critics of austerity argue that it is absurd and counterproductive, but European leaders disagree. During the latest round of negotiations with Greece Angela Merkel argued: “This is not about several billion Euros—this is fundamentally about how the EU can stay competitive in the world.” There is some truth in this. What Merkel does not mention is that workers in Europe, in Europe’s South in particular, increasingly compete with workers in the Global South.