Austerity Clashes in Brussels

March 15, 2013

European leaders meeting in Brussels were met with protests against austerity as they try to work out a way to tackle the debt crisis crippling the Eurozone. Some of the protestors were arrested by police.Thousands of protestors in Brussels were  demanding that EU leaders bring austerity measures to a close and focus on boosting growth and reducing unemployment.
Protests were led by the European Trade Union Association, and the direct action groups For A European Spring and Bloccupy.
Nearly 1,500 protesters rallied at the Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels, according to police on the scene. Although more were seen gathering close to the European Council Summit at the Place Shuman. There have reportedly been 25 arrests by police.
The police banned protesters from marching past the banks and the seats of government in Brussels, to the dismay of many of the protesters. “We want to be marching past the seats of government, past the people who actually have a say in what is going on, I think it’s an outrage,” Pascoe Sabido told New Europe Online.
Unemployment in the Eurozone is now just under 12%, while youth unemployment is at 24.2%.
Even some EU leaders acknowledged that the current situation cannot continue indefinitely and that action is needed.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to the social emergency in some of our countries”, said EU president Herman Van Rompuy during the summit.
The Irish Prime Minster went further, saying, “No leader can be happy with the situation where 26 million people are out of work in the European Union. That is why we are here,” said Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny.
But the EU’s Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn insisted that austerity works and said that fiscal consolidation was working in Ireland.
His views were echoed by the Finish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen.
“Structural reforms don’t bear fruit overnight, but they are the best sustainable economic stimulus. Accumulating excessive debt is not,” he said.
Lode Vanoost, the former deputy speaker of the Belgian Parliament, explained that the gulf between the citizens of the EU and their governments is widening and that what is happening now “is a clash between what the public wants and what the governments and the EU are doing,” he told media.
100 of the protesters occupied the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs in Brussels (DG ECFIN), and the headquarters of European Commissioner Oli Rehn, to make a stand against his role in austerity.
The DG ECFIN provides most of the staff whose job it is to go to indebted European countries to impose austerity measures regardless of public opinion.Media agencies