Blog Fifteen: European Elections - Austerity Rejected!

For the past decade European countries have felt a tremendous amount of pressure regarding the levels of debt, and deficiency of the Euro. In particular, Greece has taking one of the hardest hits in this crisis, as it is close to default with roughly 165% Public Debt to their GDP. They have tried many strategies to put austerity measures into effect however; they are not approved by the citizens of Greece and other countries in the European Union facing this debt dilemma.  Specifically France and Germany have been the highest influence on the union’s hope for survival. Although they are experiencing debt themselves they have given money to countries that are in extreme need. Eventually these countries will not be able to lend out these favors and because of this countries like France and Greece have both had government elections to sort out there debt issues.

            France’s election was a presidential election. Former President, Nicolas Sarkozy has been one of the main assistants, along with Angela Merkel during the European debt crisis. Nevertheless, Sarkozy did not win his election, being replaced by Francois Hollande. Even though France is not facing as drastic debt problems such as Greece it still has debt problems that cannot be ignored. If it is ignored, and austerity measures are not made, they will see problems in the near future.

            On the other hand, Greece has faced elections as well but it is a more drastic election. This is because the two parties in the election were pro austerity (Radical Left) and anti austerity (New Democracy). In the end, the New Democracy Party won, with the leader Alexis Tsipras. Since it is a democratic country, one could say that the people’s voice came across very strong in the election, however negative consequences have resulted with this new form of government since they are not planning on finding appropriate solution against the Greek Debt. It will be very interesting to see what happens…