Europe's Angry Youth

    Flash Points Across the Continent

By Spiegel Online Staff
Spiegel (Germany)
August 12, 2011

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,779906,00.html#ref=nlint

    Violent riots like those that raged through
    London and Britain this week have rung the
    alarm bell for politicians. Frustration is also
    high among young people in other nations across
    Europe. As the gap between rich and poor
    widens, the next outbreak could happen in a
    number of countries.

For four days earlier this week, young people in
Britain rioted, marauding through the streets of
England's big cities. Prime Minister David Cameron
called off his summer holiday in Tuscany to deal with
the situation, and members of parliament were recalled
from their recess.

Cameron's government has described the rioters as
criminals looking to plunge the country into chaos, but
that's only part of the truth. A recent study by the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) reveals another piece of the puzzle: Of all the
European Union countries, only Portugal is home to
greater wealth disparity than Great Britain.

These riots are a specifically English problem -- at
least for now. But the divide between rich and poor is
growing all across Europe, helped along by austerity
measures, especially those implemented by the countries
worst stricken in the debt crisis, including Greece,
Spain and Italy. Not only are social services being
slashed, but school budgets and health care services as
well. And nearly every European city has its
disadvantaged neighborhoods, places where opportunities
for young people in particular are limited.

Prosperous Germany is also feeling the pinch of cost-
cutting measures. The German National Poverty
Conference (NAK) warns that prospects for young people
are only growing worse. As youth welfare services are
cut, they say, other services, such as the charity
missions run from train stations throughout the
country, are seeing more young people in need. And to
find proof that Germany is also home to a latent
tendency toward violence, look no further than the
yearly riots on May 1 -- International Workers' Day --
in Berlin's Kreuzberg district and Hamburg's
Schanzenviertel.

The "Losers' Uprising," as German daily Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung termed it, could spread beyond
Britain in the future. Many EU countries already fear
the development of what the German media are describing
as "English-style conditions." The Continent could be
in for an explosive autumn, a situation some have
already called a crisis of European democracy.

__________

Youth unemployment in Europe Chart:
http://tinyurl.com/3tq3cx4

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