THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Unemployment, debt and the collapse of industry have brought Spain to its knees – even the middle classes are now queuing at the food banks
Spain, the fourth-largest economy in the Eurozone, is treading water. Europe is poised to approve a loan of up to €100 billion to save its stricken banking sector, and with Spain's borrowing costs remaining dangerously high, fears are growing that it could follow Greece, Ireland and Portugal in a full-scale bailout. The prospects for growth are low as Spaniards steel themselves for the effects of €27 billion worth of cuts this year as the country struggles to bring its budget deficit down from 8.9 per cent of GDP in 2011 to under three per cent by 2014.
Spain is forecast to be the only country among the 17 nations of the Eurozone to remain in recession in 2013. Unemployment, already at 24.3 per cent, is expected to worsen. Half of all Spaniards aged between 18 and 25 are out of work – youth unemployment in Spain now exceeds 50 per cent, matching that of Greece. Blocked out of a labour market that favours older employees on permanent contracts who are expensive to fire, youth workers in Spain have suffered the brunt of the economic crisis. Once, many unskilled youths found work in the construction sector, but with growth crippled and Spain sliding into its second recession within three years the competition for jobs is high.
Where their parents looked to a bright future, as Spain developed from a fledgling democracy on the death of the Fascist dictator Francisco Franco to one of the success stories of the European Union, today's youth have little to do with their time but join marches and sit-ins against the austerity cuts, the political system and rising unemployment.
In Tres Cantos, a dormitory town 20 miles north of Madrid, the heat of the day was barely diminished at 7pm. An elderly couple shuffled beneath a pergola draped in wisteria, seeking out what little shade there was. Restaurant terraces were empty, their tables laid optimistically for an evening rush. The one hive of activity was outside a collection of white portable buildings on scrubland behind metal fencing in the heart of the town centre. Here, a queue of people snaked out of the gates. Their heads down, they pulled shopping trolleys and clutched bags marked with the names of leading supermarkets, but this was not a supermarket. It was a Red Cross centre. Read on and comment » | Fiona Govan | Saturday, July 21, 2012
