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Protests in Brussels show eurozone failure: Analyst

Wednesday, 25 May 2016 7:01 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 25 May 2016 7:06 AM ]

A hooded man walks and brandishes a flag of the Belagian socialist party as Belgium's riot police stand guard during a national anti-austerity demonstration on May 24, 2016, in Brussels. (Photo by AFP)

Press TV has conducted an interview with Gary Cartwright, an EU affairs consultant in Brussels, and Sean O’Grady, the deputy managing editor of The Independent in London, to discuss the recent protests in the Belgian capital against the government’s austerity measures for the social and economic sectors.

Cartwright said the protests against the government's austerity measures in Brussels are a result of the failure of the eurozone.

He also said the problem with the eurozone is that it is a political project, not an economic one.

The analyst further stated that the eurozone project has gone “horribly wrong,” adding, “All the signs are that it is going to get worse”.

Cartwright went on to say there has not been an “economic recovery” because of the people who are driving the policies in Europe.

“One would have thought that if one was setting out an economic union, the European Commission, the European Central Bank would have run checks on the countries that were applying to join that union,” he said

He further argued that the unemployment rate has quadrupled in those European countries that have already introduced austerity packages.

O’Grady, for his part, said Belgium and other Western European countries have to adjust to a “new economic reality” and try to find a way in which the European economy as a whole can make its way in the world.

He also noted that there might be protests by the people who will lose their social benefits but in the long-run the austerity measures are in the interest of the wider population.

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