NEWS & LETTERS, October - November 2009
Social and economic problems grip Spain
The working class of Spain has been hit hard by the world economic crisis. The Spanish homeowners are experiencing the same difficulties as U.S. households--inability to pay the mortgage due to aggressive lending by financial institutions, and massive unemployment. Spain has the leading unemployment of all European nations, close to 19%.
The crisis is seen in higher prices for basic commodities and less quality. Even the daily loaf of bread weighs much less than last year.
The economic crisis is combined with the political crisis of the two leading parties of Spain, Partido Popular (PP) and Partido Socialista Obrero Espaņol (PSOE). They attack each other daily, since legislating the remedies to ease the crisis is at a dead end. Workers are losing their jobs while government officials debate about who gets unemployment benefits and how much. Workers in the streets are shouting, "We do not need 425 Euros. We want jobs." A person needs a bare minimum of 1000 Euros per month to live.
The reemergence of ETA, the Basque separatists, is another social ill for Spain. The recent killing of two guardia civil, the attempted bombing of their residential building in Burgos--which could have killed 1,500 family members including women and children--and bombs exploding in restaurants in Mallorca, scared away many tourists from the beaches of Spain, furthering unemployment.
After the unification of Europe, Spain's once abundant agriculture sector cannot even provide enough potatoes for itself and imports 60% of potatoes consumed. This is the direct result of the European Federation policy of subsidizing Spain's farmers not to cultivate from 2005 to 2009. At the same time Opel car manufacturing closed its doors in Zaragoza to reopen in Germany. Thousands protested their lost jobs in the streets. Quantel, the telecommunications giant of Spain, this year laid off more workers in Salamanca. About 150 workers lost their jobs and got no support from their union or the city.
We need to smash this ridiculous economic structure where we bail out the very same industries who are throwing us onto the streets.
--Correspondent in Spain
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