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Unemployment continues to plague the Eurozone, as concern builds regarding the long term financial health of European member states Spain and Greece. According to figures released last Friday by the European Union’s statistical agency Eurostat, the Greek unemployment rate stood at a whopping 23 percent, while in Spain a full quarter of the workforce is now out of a job. The numbers are worse for Greek and Spanish youth where the rates for unemployment are over 50 percent.

The bleak report comes amidst worries that Spain will join Greece, Ireland, and Portugal in requesting a government bailout from other Eurozone members unless it finds some way to boost economic growth. The Spanish Government, which has already instituted its own austerity policies, is eager to avoid the conditions attached to a bailout. Spain’s economy minister Luis de Guindos announced on Friday the government’s approval of banking reforms meant to instill investor confidence in its financial future. Very different debates, however, are happening on the streets of Spanish and Greek cities where anger is aimed at harsh government austerity policies and increasingly, minorities.

The recent murder of an Iraqi refugee in Athens has raised fears that economic frustrations in Greece are manifesting in an anti-immigrant backlash. The attack coincides with growing support for the ultra-conservative Golden Dawn party, which earlier this month, held a food drive, for Greek citizens only.

And in Spain left-wing politician Manuel Sanchez Gordillo was dubbed “robin hood” after leading a recent series of “workers” marches through the country’s south in anger over austerity policies meant to curb public spending.

GUEST: Andrej Grubacic, anarchist theorist, sociologist, activist and Chair of the Anthropology and Social Change program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, co-author with Staughton Lynd of the book Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History

Click here to find out more about the Anthropology and Social Change Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies