As the residents of Greece, Spain and other countries grow increasingly restless with countless riots, the European continent is bursting at the seams with its economic unrest. Since the European Central Bank's promise to take action in bond markets and assist the economically weakest countries of the euro-zone, the original contentment of this past summer has faded and been replaced with tension and unrest. As of September 28, the Spanish bank stress test was showcased to be at a striking 59.3bn black hole. People from all across the European continent are panicking at the newly shown weakness of the debt of Spain, Greece, and other countries in similarly dire straits, which is causing a great number of disturbing protests.
Originally, the euro-zone crisis had been dispelled by the European Central Bank's promises to purchase large amounts of some of the debt of the most economically afflicted countries, including Spain and Italy. However, the pride of the Spanish country seems to have prevailed, along with the fact that Germany has a hand in Spain's decision not to request any more financial help; the Spanish government has shown quite a bit of noticeable hesitation towards the European Central Bank's offer. Spanish protests have been extremely prevalent; in the city of Madrid, large groups of protestors stormed the streets, calling for parliament to take action against the various tax hikes, government spending cuts, and their position as the euro currency-using country that has the highest unemployment rate to date: nearly 25 percent. Students and educated adults alike demonstrated their anger at the Spanish government's "incompetence", and their actions have not fallen on deaf ears.
Similar situations have occurred in Portugal, another country that utilizes the Euro currency. Portugal's budget cuts have caused the country to be locked into an endless ocean of economic unrest. The nation's 78 billion euro bailout has caused the country to progressively fail more, and according to several sources, a large portion of Portugal's young adult population is moving elsewhere to find work and prosperity. The residents of Portugal have reacted in a similar way to the Spanish, utilizing hundreds of heated protests and demonstrations on the streets of their nation.
In Italy, another debt-ridden country at the center of the euro-zone crisis, there is an equal amount of unrest. The country's prime minister, politician Mario Monti, has decided not to renew his bid for another office term. This has contributed considerably to Italy's uncertainty regarding how its national debt would be handled by key leaders of the nation. Mario Monti's austerity measures that were enacted in August caused quite a stir, deciding to make further cuts that totaled 4.5 billion euros in order to balance the country's alarming budget deficit. As a result, nearly 30,000 members of the two of Italy's most prevalent unions came together for a dramatically posed strike in the ancient city of Rome. The protestors were of almost every class and occupation: teachers, health employees, and even garbage collectors all expressed their immense displeasure at the euro-zone crisis.
Greece has been significantly impacted by the euro-zone crisis as well; there have been several rallies by citizens expressing their indignation at the crisis. An approximated number of 70,000 people gathered to take action against the Greek parliament for its austerity measures. As the thousands in the crowd collectively shouted their anger, things grew even more out of hand. Demonstrators violently threw fire bombs at Greek police; in retaliation, the security forces used both grenades and pepper spray in an attempt to push the violent protestors back from the parliament building. According to the popular Greek newspaper Kathimerin, the security forces in question had been told not to utilize any chemicals against the angry demonstrators.
The euro-zone crisis has become a full-blown epidemic of anger at both debt and money mismanagement. Greece, Spain, Italy and other effectively weak countries are feeling the wrath of their citizens through numerous protests and progressively more departures by the nation's residents. Even the influential European Central Bank is unsure of when this chaos will calm itself; however in debt the afflicted countries are, its citizens are angered at the skyrocketing unemployment rates and the ineptitude of their respective governments.
