From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/16-0
by Vicente Navarro
Published on Friday, November 16, 2012 by Common Dreams
Today we are witnessing a frontal attack (and there is no other word to describe what is happening) to the welfare states of the countries of the Eurozone, which is especially accentuated in the periphery of thismonetary union. In Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland, we are seeing wage reductions, increases in unemployment, dilution and weakening of social protection, reduction of public social expenditures, privatization of public transfers (such as pensions) and public services of the welfare state (such as medical care, education, and social services), reduction of labor, social and even civil rights, and weakening of collective bargaining and trade unions. All these public interventions represent the most active aggression against the welfare and well-being of their populations, in particular of their popular classes (working and middle classes). They are hurting a lot. In Spain, the suicide rate has increased threefold as a consequence of the unbearable stress among people who have lost their homes. Every day, almost 500 families are forced to leave their homes because they cannot pay the mortgage.
All these policies respond to the belief held by the European financial, political, and media establishments that the welfare state in Europe is not sustainable any longer. As Mr. Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, put it quite clearly in his Wall Street Journal interview (24.02.12): “The social European model is not sustainable any longer.” Also, President Rajoy, head of the conservative Spanish government, said the same, just using different words: “We are spending in our welfare state far above what we can afford.” Spain, incidentally, is one of the countries in the EU-15 that spends the least on its welfare state, only 22 percent of its Gross National Product, compared with the 27 percent average of the EU-15. Only one out of every 10 adults works in the public services of the welfare state (such as medical care, education, and social services) compared with one out of every six on average in the EU-15 and one out of every four in Sweden, the country in the EU-15 that has the most developed welfare state. Regardless of the indicators one uses, the fact is that the Spanish welfare state is underfunded and understaffed. And, with the cuts of public social expenditures, the situation is getting worse. The average time for patient visits to their general practitioners, in the National Health Services, has been reduced by 30 percent since the crisis started in 2007.
The 20 percent of the population with highest income, however, has not been affected by the deterioration of these public services, since they use private services, both in medical care and in education. They go to see private physicians when they are sick and send their children to private schools. Social class is indeed an important variable in understanding Spain. The Spanish state (as well as the Greek, Portuguese, and Irish states) is poor, with scarce social conscience and with limited redistributive effects, the result of very regressive fiscal policies. And the cuts are weakening the situation even more.
Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/11/16-0
