by S. da Silva – BASICS Issue #20 (July/Aug 2010)
The economic crisis unfolding in Europe today is the crisis of a putrefying world imperialist system.
All across Europe, working people are being confronted with the concerted attack of the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the form of imposed “austerity measures”, which will result in raided pensions, job losses, slashed wages, and massive cuts to social security and the public sector.
The pretext for the wave of “austerity measures” now being imposed is what is being called Europe’s “sovereign debt crisis”. Most of the EU countries have total debts ranging from 50% to 115% of their GDP and annual budget deficits up to as high as 14% of GDP. By these measures, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland appear to be in the worst positions.
