How the world sees Greece
Deadline looming for Greece to earn bailout tranche Express.co.uk ... finance ministers are expected to discuss this week what they should do about Greece when they meet in Brussels. Even if Greece does make enough savings this week, any further bailout funds could be drip-fed in small tranches to control the situation. |
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Washington Times | Pick It Fresh and Eat It Healthy: Greek Salad Washington Times Greek Salad is so fresh and crisp. In Greece, it is made from things readily available in the garden: tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. They throw in some Kalamata olives and tangy fresh feta, and top it off with a bright citrusy dressing that is cool ... |
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With youth jobless rates at 50% back home, graduates are heading for Berlin – but still grumble about the weather
When Dacil Granados turned up in Berlin a year ago and walked into her first German class, she was amazed to find almost all her classmates were fellow Spaniards. "They were all engineers, apart from an architect and myself," says the art historian. "All here, most rather reluctantly, for the same reason – to work."
Granados, 36, has just begun a job as an art history guide at one of Berlin's top tourist sites, the Pergamon Museum, ending a lengthy period of joblessness that started when she was made redundant from her job as a curator at a gallery of Catalan art in Madrid in December 2011. The Gran Canaria native is one of the estimated 80,000 young southern Europeans who are now arriving in Germany every year and who have been turning up in increasing numbers ever since the economic crisis began.
The Greek rate of youth unemployment now stands at more than 60%, Spain's is more than 50% and Italy and Portugal are at 40%. Germany, with its shortage of skilled workers, the highest employment level it has known for almost 25 years, and an ageing population, has become a magnet for this section of European society.
From Lisbon to Madrid, the Goethe Institute, the body representing Germany's cultural interests abroad, has reported a record uptake in its language classes, as growing numbers decide to learn German to set them up for the workplace. It is scrambling to find teachers to meet the demand.
Meanwhile, the job sections of advertisement websites are inundated with Spaniards, Portuguese and Italians offering to do everything from washing up to au pair jobs, often for just a few hundred euros a month.
In the first half of 2012, the number of emigrants from Spain to Germany was up on the same period of the previous year by 53%. Among Greeks the figure was 78% higher.
Germany's International Placement Service (ZAV), which is responsible for recruiting foreign workers to fill the gaps in the country's job market, is feverishly scouring southern Europe for skilled workers such as engineers and scientists, nurses and care workers.
"It's a huge sea-change, when you consider that just seven years ago German workers were being sent to work in Spain's then booming economy," Thomas Liebig, a migration expert with the OECD, told Die Zeit, referring to the time, not all that long ago, when it was Germany which was considered to be the sick man of Europe.
The ZAV and other recruitment agencies habitually deploy what they call lotse, or pilots, on assignments to southern Europe in the hope that they will bring back new labour, as well as those willing to take up a place in Germany's coveted apprenticeship system.
The agencies' recruitment drives often have the air of charm offensives about them, involving a map of Germany that is projected onto the wall, as well as a beginner's guide to life in a country many young southern Europeans have never even considered visiting, let alone working in, including how many breweries it has (1,300) and how many different types of bread (500), as well as reports about the weather, which is probably one of the hardest points about selling Germany to Iberians and Greeks.
"I certainly had never considered working in Germany before the crisis, and I knew very little about it," Juanjo Pujol, 28, told the Observer. "I grew up on Mallorca, surrounded by German holidaymakers, but I never thought that I'd find myself living among them in Germany."
He had always been told by his doctor and nurse parents that if he were to work hard at school and in his studies he would be set up for life. "But the opposite proved to be the case," he says.
After finishing his degree in environmental science, he got a short-term job reorganising a recycling plant after the introduction of a new EU waste directive. But after that he found himself unemployed and unable to find any work. "Rather than have to live on my parents' charity, I decided to come to Berlin."
He is now working as a babysitter and a bartender. "I don't mind the food – I'm vegan and it's easier to be vegan in Germany than Spain, but the weather? The weather – especially the long dark winter – it sucks," he says.
While they can't do much about their weather, it is widely agreed that Germans need to work on their hospitality. Many southern Europeans, used to family-oriented lifestyles, complain about the lack of warmth, the fact that, particularly in smalltown Germany, it is hard to socialise with people after work, and about a general sense of hostility over widespread perceptions that southern Europeans have brought the problems on themselves.
"I've seen the look some people give me when I'm in a group speaking Spanish and I know what they're thinking about us: that we're after their charity, that we got ourselves in this mess," says Granados.
It is one of the reasons why Spaniards in particular often stay for a short time – 70% of Spaniards who emigrate to Germany stay for less than a year, according to official statistics.
Economic experts have warned that Germany will suffer if it doesn't work to improve its sociability skills towards the newcomers.
For years Germany's gastarbeiter or guestworkers were seen as just that – guests, who would go home, even after they had been in Germany for several decades. Only recently has that mentality begun to change.
"Lately the word willkommenskultur [welcome culture] has become very fashionable," says Liebig. "A change in attitude is taking place in which a work migrant is no longer seen first and foremost as a potential problem. This could be a chance for Germany."
In an effort to show it takes the new workers seriously, the German government has put €140m into a fund to help with everything from language classes, to supporting newcomers with bureaucracy, finding accommodation, travel and relocation costs.
Rafael Santamarta could have moved back to Spain at least three time since relocating to Germany when the crisis broke in 2008, but has chosen not to. "I have been approached by three Spanish headhunters," says the 30-year old project manager for a Berlin-based social games company, Wooga. "But I have much more trust for the German system right now, where I'm treated with respect, paid properly, and work the hours I'm contracted to work for. Whereas in Spain none of that was the case."
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Today's teenagers, faced with economic uncertainty, will confront huge challenges. The good news? They seem singularly well-equipped for the task, according to a major new survey
Four young people from across the country tell how they feel about their future prospects in work and education
Across Europe, more than five million twentysomethings have seen their aspirations buried under a mountain of debt, and had their epitaph written: "The Lost Generation". Britain is no exception. It has 20% youth unemployment, and thousands more not in education or training. At an emergency meeting in Berlin last week, 20 European heads of government agreed a £5bn crisis package to offer apprenticeships, training and job creation. But it will take miracles to make a significant dent in current levels of joblessness – for instance, nearly 60% in Greece and more than 56% in Spain.
This is Generation Y, born between the 1980s and the millennium, hammered by the recession and austerity. Generation Y faces more years of financial slowdown, but what is to become of the cohort following in its footsteps, arguably moving through an even bleaker terrain? What of the generation now in its teens, growing up against a backdrop of accelerating job insecurity, deep cuts to the public sector, flatlining salaries, rising housing costs and fierce competition, exacerbated by globalisation, that has turned the domestic job market into a zone that covers five continents? This is the generation that, for the first time, will see some members slipping down the ladder of mobility and dying younger and possibly poorer than their parents.
The lucrative commercial hunt is on to find a label for this group – once its characteristics can be defined – to allow the Klondike of branding and marketing to begin. The cohort begins with births in the late 1990s, overlapping with Generation Y.
Cohorts traditionally last 20 years but psychologist Jean M Twenge, chronicler of the Y Generation, says that such is the pace of cultural change that the time span is now shrinking to a decade. Given the degree of adversity it faces, it would be unsurprising if this latest cohort finds itself labelled Generation P for pessimism, yet the picture is far more complex.
A survey by BritainThinks into the attitudes of UK teenagers is, of course, no more than a brief glimpse of a cross-section of young people, aged 14 to 18, and parents based in Leeds, London and Coventry. However, there are clues that values and aspirations may significantly differ from those of Generation Y. That earlier cohort has been variously described as narcissistic, materialistic, individualistic, celebrity-obsessed and not inclined to be civic-minded. Digitally fluent, Generation Y abandoned its parents' lifelong loyalty to a single employer and has changed careers often. So what are the clues to how its successor cohort compares?
In the BritainThinks survey, employment is, predictably, a universal goal (70%), but with qualifications (35%) and home ownership (29%) far behind. Is this the downsizing of ambition? No skivers here. The majority say they would work even if rich and even if paid less than on benefits. Surprisingly perhaps, fame, wealth and designer labels hold little attraction. "I see celebrity as a zoo," one 14-year-old said. "Why would I want to be in a zoo?"
However, an exodus from Britain does have appeal; where to go is less clear given the parlous state of the rest of Europe. Two-thirds worry about opportunities in the UK. None expects to be unemployed, even though it's likely to affect one in five young people.
Creative industries top the list of preferred careers (manufacturing, engineering and retail are very unpopular). There is concern about a lack of "real" apprenticeships, vocational opportunities and useful careers advice. Luke Murphy, for instance, is 18 and lives in Leeds. He has just completed a Btec level 3 in games design, a course that includes 3D modelling, web design and animation. He hopes to gain a triple merit and aims to study animation at university.
"I've always brought characters to life so I had a good idea of what I want to do," he says. "The school made suggestions, but for the most part it was me doing the looking."
Across the group, even 14- and 15-year-olds have a grounded eye on their futures. Lucy Baillie, 35, in Leeds, is the parent of Harry, 15, and five-year-old Poppy. "Harry wants to be a footballer, but otherwise he's set on being a mechanic or an electrician. He's a good boy. He'll be OK," she says.
"My daughter, Megan, is 14 and very level-headed," says Andrew Smith, 46, deputy head of a primary school in Surrey, who took a 50% cut in salary to switch from his career as a Middle East analyst seven years ago. Megan is in private school. "I hadn't a clue what I wanted to do, even in my 20s. Megan knows exactly her route. She sees herself as working in publishing first, then as an author and possibly teaching later. Life has changed a lot in the last five years. Two or three careers seems a good option. "
The BritainThinks survey hints at a move away from Generation Y's individualism. In the nine focus groups, there was a strong desire for "giving back". On the negative side, a quarter of the sample (drawn across the classes) expressed concerns about mental ill health and the price that might be exacted. "You can't afford to be fragile," one 15-year-old said.
The young people's near-total lack of connection to Westminster politics ought to be a major challenge to the political establishment. In Scotland, 16-year-olds will vote on independence next year, while in this survey, only 55% of young people expressed an obligation to vote. That is a critical democratic deficit.
"There is a mysterious cycle in human events," said Franklin D Roosevelt back in 1936. "To some generations, much is given. Of other generations, much is expected."
Forging economic survival, community regeneration and personal happiness out of the debris of a decade and more of corporate avarice, a reduced welfare state and financial meltdown, is the task ahead for today's teenagers. Success may elude some, but it could also be the making of a new and robust social contract. Are we seeing a less individualistic, less hedonistic, more community-minded Generation A – anxious, austerity-minded, anti-materialistic but also highly aware of the importance of a connection to others?
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