Large public demonstrations were staged throughout Europe Wednesday in protest of government austerity measures. To recover from the European debt crisis, governments there are scaling back the social safety net and boosting taxes. A primary complaint is that while European governing bodies spent billions to bail out banks, austerity forces the general public to foot the bill. As the protests raged, a United States of America government representative seemed to side with the demonstrators. The representative, a top U.S. Treasury official, said it was too early within the recovery for European governments to abandon stimulus and embrace austerity.
Crowd around the austerity
A day of austerity demonstrations was shown all throughout Europe on Wednesday. There was a march throughout Europe with hundreds of thousands of people. As outlined by Reuters, trade unions were those who started the demonstrations, and they say that the poorest of citizens could be hurt one of the most via the austerity that will slow the economic recovery. 12 European capitals had protests in them organized by trade unions in order to say they didn’t like the concept of spending cuts and pension and labor market reforms. In Brussels, Belgium, a crowd of about 60,000 gathered from across Europe, waving union flags and carrying banners saying “No to austerity” and “Priority to jobs and growth.”
Austerity focused on altering social products by far the most
There is one major reason the austerity demonstrations in Brussels are happening. It is because member states with high unemployment are running up deficits to fund their social programs which lead the European Union Commission to come up with the proposal of penalizing these member states. The Huffington Post reports the EU proposal is something that Germany supports one of the most. Of course, that means the country of France disagrees with it. France does not like the concept of strict rules deciding things and thinks that is should really just be sanctions. . Spanish workers shut down trains and buses. One man in Ireland used a cement truck to protest. He was protesting the bank bailouts in the country by blocking Irish parliament.
United States of America explains austerity is not supporting Europe very much
A top United States Treasury official visited Frankfurt throughout the austerity protests. He urged Europe to slow down a little on things. There is a huge debate between the U.S. and Europe about what the real solution to the global economic crisis is. The Wall Street Journal reports the debate is between austerity and stimulus. The U.S. firmly believes that a stimulus will work the best. Europe disagrees making increasingly more spending cuts and increases in taxes. .
Citations
Reuters
reuters.com/article/idUSLDE68S24620100929?type=marketsNews
Huffington Post
huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/spain-strikes-over-auster_n_743014.html#s146799
Wall Street Journal
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703431604575521833087264428.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
