The crisis facing the younger generation across the Eurozone worsened last month as youth unemployment hit a new record high of 24.4% with under-25s in Spain, Italy and Portugal finding it harder to get jobs. The grim news on on employment came as the Netherlands was stripped of its prized AAA credit rating despite the country's recent exit from a year-long recession. Ratings agency Standard & Poor's said on Friday that weakening growth prospects showed the country would struggle to improve its financial stability and generate new jobs. It said: "The downgrade reflects our opinion that the Netherlands' growth prospects are now weaker than we had previously anticipated, and the real GDP per capita trend growth rate is persistently lower than that of peers." It cited weakening consumer demand, high levels of personal debt and falling house prices for keeping consumer spending and tax receipts low in the next few years. One in four Dutch homebuyers is in negative equity as a result of falling property values. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, said S&P's downgrade to AA+ was disappointing when the economy had returned to growth. S&P's action leaves only three members of the eurozone with a top rating from all three agencies – Germany, Luxembourg and Finland. The Eurozone jobless data showed Spain's youth unemployment rate has now increased to 57.4%, only marginally below Greece's August high of 58% - which remains the highest rate of youth unemployment for any country in the eurozone's history. Italy's youth unemployment rate rose to 41.2%, from 40.5% the previous month. In Portugal, it rose to 36.5% from 36.2%. The startling figures from southern Europe contrast with rates in the north where Germany has a 7.8% youth unemployment rate and the Netherlands an 11.6% rate. Italy's credit rating is perilously close to entering junk status and Rome is lobbying hard in Brussels for more time to cut the country's annual deficit. The coalition government headed by Enrico Letta said on Friday it would call a fresh confidence vote in parliament, despite winning a vote earlier in the week, to confirm his government's majority after the withdrawal of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party from the ruling coalition. Letta said the vote would be held after his centre-left Democratic party elects a new leader on 8 December, and would be based on a new agenda for 2014 which would be discussed with coalition partners. "The confidence vote will allow us to pass from defence into attack," said Letta, whose government is backed by the Democratic party, a centrist group Civic Choice and a centre-right group that broke away from Forza Italia. Considering the chaos in Italian politics and the credit rating downgrades affecting some of the EU's traditional paymasters, France and the Netherlands in particular, there are still many analysts who fear for the eurozone's growth prospects over the next decade. Youth unemployment also remains a scar that shows little sign of healing. While the adult unemployment rate fell across the eurozone from 12.2 to 12.1%, 3.6m under-25s are now unemployed, an increase of 15,000 on the previous month. |
據(jù)英國《衛(wèi)報》報道,歐元區(qū)的青年人失業(yè)率在10月達(dá)到24.4%,創(chuàng)下歷史新高。年輕一代面臨的就業(yè)危機(jī)逾發(fā)惡化,特別是西班牙、意大利和葡萄牙的青年(25歲以下)找工作格外困難。 這則關(guān)于就業(yè)問題殘酷消息傳出之時,荷蘭剛剛從長達(dá)一年的經(jīng)濟(jì)蕭條中有所恢復(fù),卻未能保住“AAA”的信用評級。
標(biāo)準(zhǔn)普爾說道:“荷蘭信用等級下調(diào)反映了我們的觀點,即荷蘭的經(jīng)濟(jì)增長幅度低于我們之前的預(yù)期,而人均GDP的趨勢增長率也一直低于其他國家?!?/p>
荷蘭的財政大臣杰羅恩?迪塞布洛姆表示,荷蘭的經(jīng)濟(jì)剛剛開始復(fù)蘇,而“標(biāo)準(zhǔn)普爾”卻將荷蘭降級為“AA+”,這無疑令人失望。 標(biāo)準(zhǔn)普爾的這個動作讓歐元區(qū)只有三個國家仍擁有標(biāo)普最高的AAA評級,分別是德國、盧森堡和芬蘭。 歐元區(qū)失業(yè)數(shù)據(jù)顯示,西班牙的青年失業(yè)率增長最快,現(xiàn)已達(dá)到57.4%,僅比希臘在8月創(chuàng)下的最高紀(jì)錄58%低0.6個百分點。意大利的青年失業(yè)率由10月的40.5%增長至41.2%,葡萄牙則由36.2% 增長至 36.5%。
萊塔稱,投票將在12月8日在他所在的中左翼民主黨選出一位新黨首之后進(jìn)行。投票將會依照與其他聯(lián)合政府成員商定的2014年日程規(guī)劃來進(jìn)行。 萊塔說,“信任投票將使我們的處境轉(zhuǎn)守為攻?!比R塔政府的主要支持者是民主黨、中間派聯(lián)盟Civic Choice,以及一個從意大利力量黨分離出來的中右翼組織。
(譯者 吲哚乙酸 編輯 丹妮) |