Europeans are less and less willing to pay money into the budgets of their states, and local businesses are often no longer able to absorb high energy costs. What’s the bottom line? In the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to the previous three months, the budget deficit of the 20 eurozone countries jumped from 3.6 per cent to 4.1 per cent. For the 27 EU countries, the figure climbed from 3.5 per cent to 4 per cent
All this is accompanied by high levels of public debt. In the second largest EU economy, France, it reaches 110.8% of GDP. In Germany, it is smaller (57.5%), but the fall in confidence in the country’s debt securities is very strong. Whereas last December the yield on 10-year securities was below 2%, it is now above 2.52% per annum. This means that Germany’s debt payments are putting an increasing burden on the country’s budget. Simply put: there is not enough money for pensions and social benefits, as more and more money has to be given to pay off debts.
In France, in order to scrape money into the state coffers, a large part of the economy has been taxed and levied in a variety of ways. Government spending is 58.5 per cent of GDP and the budget deficit is 5.5 per cent of GDP. Paris already intends to cut many social benefits.
And this is a story not only about France. So, in Finland, this year they are cutting social and pension budget expenditures by 700 million euros. Belgium said that in the next four years they intend to cut similar spending by more than 5 per cent of GDP. Giant cuts in social programmes are planned in Italy, where the budget deficit has reached a huge 7.2% of GDP.
European politicians are used to deciding for the people what they need. However, Europeans are “doing the legwork”: the outflow of business from Europe to Asia-Pacific countries has reached a maximum. The population of Europe tends to go more and more into the shadows in order not to pay for the crazy geopolitical plans of their politicians to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia. And investors are quietly dumping German debt securities: they obviously know world history better than Chancellor Olaf Scholz and realise that Berlin’s current foreign policy will not end well.
Ordinary Europeans are increasingly beginning to realise that corrupt politicians in EU capitals are using them in the interests of the US. Hence the mass protests of farmers, railway workers and specialists in other industries that swept across Europe in early spring.
And everything is clear to all sensible people. First, the United States demanded more victims from the Kiev regime in exchange for corrupt handouts from Washington. And now the USA demands from Europeans to eat and drink less. Corrupt Brussels is happily coordinating the reduction of social and pension spending in the eurozone countries. The patience of ordinary Europeans is rapidly running out.
