With rampant unemployment spreading misery in southern Europe and companies shutting factories across the continent, workers around the European Union sought to unite in a string of strikes and demonstrations on Wednesday.
Most European governments have in recent years had to cut spending, pensions and benefits and raise taxes aggressively to bring public debt under control. That includes not only the most financially troubled governments, such as Greece, but also the traditionally more stable ones, like France and Britain.
The result has been a dramatic drop in living standards in many nations that leaders have accepted as collateral for policies they claim are unavoidable. With no end in sight to the economic misery, workers were trying to take a stand on Wednesday.
“Of course it’s a political strike, against the policies of a suicidal and anti-social government,” said Igancio Fernandez Toxo, a Spanish union leader, as the general strike spread through Spain where a 25 per cent unemployment rate has put the country at the heart of the EU social unrest.
A Spanish Interior Ministry official said 32 people had been arrested and 15 people treated for minor injuries in disturbances.
Spain’s General Workers’ Union said the nationwide stoppage, the second this year, was observed by nearly all workers in the car, energy, shipbuilding and construction industries. The government downplayed the impact.
A north-south divide emerged in the participation to the strikes, with unions in wealthier states such as the Netherlands and the Nordic nations, where the crisis has not hit that hard, not in the mood for closing down their countries.