The EU could have been the champion of the social market and by including the term in its treaty structure I hoped it would be its prime exponent worldwide. Yet in 2016, for many millions of young people, the EU is indelibly linked to unemployment and ‘austerity’, not the social market. The fatal flaws in the design of the Eurozone have created a dysfunctional EU, united only in its incapacity to run a social market or a single currency.
Can anyone justify the appalling figures for unemployment – a direct result of the euro crisis - for the under 25s in Spain, that reached 54% and is expected to be between 18-19% in 2017 despite encouraging economic growth. In Greece, Portugal, Italy there is still savage unemployment, in Ireland many young people left to go abroad. Still the euro crisis persists; a dysfunctional EU cannot, it appears, make the structural reforms.
Can anyone justify the secret trade negotiations the Commission have signed up for in TTIP? Despite protests little has been done to redress its errors. No regard for the social purpose of healthcare and the erosion of health as a Member State responsibility. The EU/Eurozone from 1992, in marked contrast to the old European Community of 1975, creeps into every nook and cranny of our life. It is now becoming entrenched in the NHS and this June we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get it out.
