The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
Podemos demonstration in Madrid, January 31,2015. Enara Echart Muñoz. All rights reserved. The countries of southern Europe are extremely diverse, both socially and politically. But they are taking the brunt of the impact caused by the same misguided policy imposed by central and northern Europe via the European Union (EU), with varying but converging outcomes. In broad terms, this amounts to chaining these countries to their peripheral position within the continent, subjecting them to unfairly disproportionate indebtedness, actively disabling the state apparatus and public services, pushing the middle classes into abrupt impoverishment, forcing young people to emigrate and cutting investment in education and research, without which it becomes impossible to doff the aforementioned peripheral status. Spain, Greece and Portugal are paradigmatic tragedies.
Although all polls indicate high levels of disaffection and even outrage (often expressed in the streets and squares) at this state of affairs, a political response has proved more difficult to articulate. Traditional parties on the left have failed to come up with solutions: the Communist parties are in favour of abandoning the EU, but the majorities tend to be put off by the risks involved; as enforcers of austerity policies, Socialist parties have, to a greater or lesser extent, discredited themselves. A vacuum thereby sets in, which has been slow to refill.
