International

This morning president of the European Commission Jose Barroso addressed the European Parliament in his annual State of the Union speech. The speech demonstrated that Barroso is completely divorced from reality. According to the Commission President, we are seeing great progress in crisis countries such as Greece and Portugal, and can be optimistic over the future of the EU. SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong, reacting to the speech, asked ‘How is it possible for this man to say this while millions are living in wretched conditions and social services and provisions are being cut throughout Europe? His speech included nothing essentially realistic on how to combat unemployment and poverty. He does, however, state that the EU is not the problem. Yet it is nevertheless his own European Commission that is holding on to austerity fetishism, to the 3% deficit norm which forces the member states to make deep spending cuts which only make the crisis worse.’