Youthful members of the full-time precariat

The global financial and economic crisis has accelerated the emergence of a new social class in Europe. Dubbed 'the precariat' by sociologists, it is made up of young people with no prospect of a decent job or a reasonable standard of living. 42% of young people are without jobs in Spain, 30% in the Baltic States, Greece and Slovakia, and 20% in Poland, Hungary, Italy and Sweden.

Given their bungled handling of the ongoing economic crisis, we can hardly expect European leaders to effectively respond to what is an imminent social crisis, which will not be characterised by a conflict of national interests, but by a conflict of generational interests played out between young and old factions in the arena of domestic politics. Today the main goal of Europe’s aging political elites is to defend the interests of their own generation – a position that inevitably adds to the frustration experienced by the young unemployed.