“The Euro will ensure full employment”. Or should that have been “full unemployment”?

When the euro was introduced 12 years ago, we were promised that: “The euro will ensure full employment and make Europe the competitive powerhouse of the world”.

So how’s it going – this “full employment” in the “competitive powerhouse of the world”? Well, it seems we’re not quite there yet.

Here are the latest unemployment figures for the EU countries (click to see more clearly)

Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Portugal, Slovakia and Bulgaria don’t seem to be doing too great. And youth unemployment in these countries is at almost catastrophic levels. Moreover, I suspect these official figures underplay the real extent of unemployment, as many millions of unemployed people will have left their home countries to find jobs in places like Germany, Holland and the UK.

There are over 26 million unemployed in the EU. Of these 26 million, 19 million are in the Eurozone. So the Eurozone has 72% of the EU’s unemployed, but only 65% of the EU’s population. The unemployment rate in the Eurozone is over 12%, but is only around 8.6% in non-Eurozone countries.

But the real tragedy is, of course, youth (<25 years old) unemployment. About 3.5 million of the EU’s 5.4 million youth unemployed live in the Eurozone. Although these figures just look like statistics, in fact they represent millions of tragedies. By the time economic recovery comes, a new cohort of young people will be leaving college and university making it unlikely that the 5.4 million currently unemployed will ever get the jobs for which they have been trained. After all, why would a company give a 30-year-old, who has never worked, a job when they can get a 25-year-old with the same qualifications? So, that’s 5.4 million people thrown on the scrap-heap in order to save the Euro and our masters’ great European superstate project.

Perhaps I misheard and when the Euro was launched, they actually promised that in some countries the Euro would “lead to full unemployment”. Because that’s what seems to be happening – especially for the young.

Still, at least the EU’s unemployed millions can all move to Britain and claim up to £25,000 a year each in benefits if they have families. After all, we must show solidarity with our European friends – even if it bankrupts us.