Oxfam EU Report Released: “A Europe for the Few, Not the Many”

Joseph Stalin once said “Mankind is divided into rich and poor, into property owners and exploited and to abstract oneself from this fundamental division and from the antagonism between poor and rich means abstracting oneself from fundamental facts.”

As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, Stalin’s words ring with a truth like a blow to the already maimed. AnonHQ have covered several issues of U.S. discrepancies between the super wealthy and the bottom classes (middle class incorporated), and the fast pace at which this problem is festering in the 21^st century. But not much has been said about the crisis in the EU.

Oxfam’s latest report, A Europe for the Few, Not the Many, warns of the inequality sweeping over Europe in 2015.

“We live on a rich continent where poverty and inequality are on the rise and are the product of political choices, not fate,” said deputy director of advocacy and campaigns for Oxfam in Europe Natalia Alonso. “To tackle inequality and poverty in Europe, we must reduce the influence the rich and powerful have in shaping government policies in their favor at the expense of the majority of European people.”

According to the report, 123 million people in the EU are at risk of poverty. In 2008 it was 116 million. The report examines why this may have happened in a wealthy EU and why it happened at a lightning fast pace. It has been projected that by 2025, poverty will face a further 15-25 million people across Europe.

“The deployment of vast public resources to rescue private institutions considered ‘too big too fail’ forced taxpayers to absorb economic losses, caused sovereign debt to increase and, ultimately, hindered economic growth. Since 2010, the cost of this adjustment has been passed on to populations who have been coping with fewer jobs and lower income for more than five years.”

From the report it is estimated that the ‘one percenters’ hold more than a third of Europe’s wealth, comparable to the U.S. situation.

One of the recommendations made by Oxfam to compete against further austerity measures is to promote a progressive national tax system, and to re-invest in education and healthcare so it is free and attainable to all who need it.

“Governments need to rebalance our unfair tax systems so that companies pay their fair share of taxes,” Natalia Alonso stated. “Governments must also rethink austerity and reinvest in public services and guarantee decent wages, so that the poorest in our societies do not continue to pay the price of the financial crisis.”

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