EPSU has been at the forefront of the struggle against austerity showing solidarity with all the unjust cuts that we have witness in Europe since the beginning of the crisis.

The Spanish government is again attacking the civil servants: they have now lost their extra pay for Christmas, which adds to the cuts in their salaries approved in 2011. The unemployed will receive less benefits when they need them most, which will make many of them join the ranks of the poor and the socially excluded; there will be immediate cuts in the public pension system, which will force the retired to pay for medicines that used to be completely free of charge. Moreover, social benefits for taking care of dependent relatives will be reduced as well. According to the Government this is the way out of the crisis.

VAT will rise (from 18 to 20% in general terms, and from 8 to 10% where it was reduced), which will entail a drop in consumption and which will hinder economic recovery; state-owned companies will be privatised and the cost of energy will rise again.

All these measures have one aim: to dismantle the welfare State. Moreover, there has been no social consultation prior to these new measures.

“These austerity-only recipes have shown that they make the social and economic situation worse, not creating jobs and not taking out of the crisis. European leaders should discard these false solutions,” says Carola Fischbach-Pyttel, EPSU General Secretary.

In Brussels the demonstration organized by the main two Spanish trade unions and supported by EPSU will take place on Thursday 19th July at 19.00 at Place Luxembourg.

For more information contact Pablo Sanchez, 00 32 474 62 66 33 psanchez@epsu.org