Europeans must not rejoice too soon. Borrowing by euro-zone banks
from the European Central Bank (ECB) jumped to €8.64 billion this week, the
highest level since March, indicating deep strains in the financial markets. In addition, political frictions over the future direction of the euro zone forged a
rift between Ms Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, just at the
time when political coherence and stability is needed the most. High levels of debt and anaemic growth continue to plague member
states.
Europe’s
young people have found themselves in the eye of the storm. It is true that unemployment,
unaffordable or unavailable mortgages and, in certain cases, high levels of
student debt, shackled Europe’s youth before the financial and euro-zone
crises, but the plight of young people has become more pronounced over recent, financially
tumultuous years.
Yet
no-one wants to talk about it. An unspoken pact, a conspiracy even, seems to
exist among politicians to remain silent on the ever-increasing intergenerational
injustice between Europe’s young people and its middle-aged and retired
citizens. As politicians, civil servants and journalists dissect strategies and
policies to save the future of the euro and with it, the European Union, they
seem to have forgotten the foundations of Europe’s future: its young people. Therefore,
as significant as this week’s developments in Europe may be, I propose that we step
back from the minutiae to
observe the situation in panorama, and take stock of the troubles facing Europe’s
young.
In
October 2011, the unemployment rate for under-25s in EU-27 stood at 22 per cent
compared to 9.8 per cent of the general EU population. In Spain, juvenile unemployment was at 48.9 per cent in August
2011. Such is the state of youth employment in
Europe, that a young man or woman is ‘lucky’ if he or she gains a so-called junk job: temporary contracts
with no legal obligation to provide certain benefits such as severance pay. Worse still, to stand
a chance at finding permanent work, young people are expected to have completed
multiple, usually unpaid, internships. This is not only a fundamentally elitist form of employment, affording essential experience only
to those whose parents can afford to support them, but it also violates the
very rules of capitalism upon which our society is based. The formula: work =
capital, no longer applies to Europe’s penniless young, but they are
nonetheless required to exist in a capitalist society where the cost of living
is ever-increasing.
The troubles of Europe’s youth cannot be exclusively located in
the recent financial and euro-zone crises, but rather they are the result of a
systematic generational fleecing. Let me return to the example of junk-jobs in
Spain, Portugal and Italy. In these countries a rigid dual-system has materialised. While middle-aged citizens have generous pensions and robust
legislation protecting their jobs, Europe’s younger generation is confined to a
vicious circle of temporary contracts that afford virtually no employment
rights. The two-track job market is stunting economic growth, and leading highly
trained young professionals to flee their native countries in search of work elsewhere.
Europe’s
intergenerational unfairness extends well beyond job availability and security,
to affordable housing and higher education fees. Certain European nations are
pricing an entire generation out of owning their own property through their
nefarious buy-to-let markets, which enable middle-aged property moguls to acquire multiple houses, while
simultaneously confining the younger generation to the rental market. For other
European young people, the rites of passage to adulthood are postponed as vast
numbers live with their parents into their late 20s.
If the
plight of the younger generation weren’t alarming enough, in Britain, the
Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has increased university tuition fees up to
£9,000 a year, a hike of 300 per cent on the previous figure. According to findings
from the Push National Student Debt Survey, British students will, as
of 2012, graduate with an average debt of £53,000 - double the figure
for 2011. By contrast, their parents benefited from free
university education, and grants to fund living costs.
The increase in tuition fees would be easier to digest if
the government were treating the rest of society with
the same severity. David Cameron, the British prime minister, has honoured his promise to keep
pensioners' bus passes and winter fuel allowances, despite the recipients' status as the richest
pensioners in history. We are all in this together, he proclaims, but some
of us more than others.
That said, many baby boomers are anything but wealthy.
They too worry about their children's future and help them when they can. I must
confess that I would not have benefited from such a high level of education had
it not been for the financial help of my parents. Like the rest of the public, the
older generation do not approve of politicians who lie to voters, as was the
case with Nick Clegg, the British deputy prime minister, who pledged to abolish
all university fees prior to the election, only to increase them three-fold once
in government.
Generational envy or blame will not
achieve anything, what is needed is robust political policy to address this
imbalance in opportunities and to give Europe’s young people their futures
back.
By Sonia Jordan
