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Subscribe to RSSAnger and sometimes violent protests have been staged across Europe against unemployment and austerity measures. ITN's Emma Murphy reports.
Updated at 9:05 a.m. ET: Pockets of violence broke out as public demonstrations and strikes over rising unemployment and austerity measures took place in many parts of Europe Wednesday.
Spanish and Portuguese workers staged a coordinated general strike across the Iberian Peninsula, shutting transport, grounding flights and closing schools to protest against spending cuts and tax hikes.
International rail services were disrupted by strikes in Belgium and workers in Greece, Italy and France planned work stoppages or demonstrations as part of a "European Day of Action and Solidarity.”
Hundreds of flights -- including those between southern Europe and connection hubs such as London Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Schiphol -- were also canceled.
NOVEMBER 7: Greece's government has approved another round of deep cuts to spending, wages and pensions, which sparked fierce clashes between police and protesters. ITV's James Mates reports.
More than 60 people were arrested in Spain and 34 injured, 18 of them security officials after scuffles at picket lines and damage to storefronts, Reuters reported. Riot police arrested at least two protesters in Madrid and hit others with batons, witnesses said.
Protesters jammed cash machines with glue and coins and plastered anti-government stickers on shop windows. Power consumption dropped 16 percent with factories idled.
More photos: Demonstrations across Europe over austerity measures
In Italy, students pelted police with rocks in a protest in Rome over money-saving plans for the school system. The windows of a bank in Milan were reportedly smashed by protesting students, according to a report on the website of the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper.
In Greece, state workers, holding banners reading "Enough is Enough," started rallying on several squares in central Athens on Wednesday morning.
See more coverage of this story at ITV News
Yves Herman / Reuters
A passenger waits on an empty platform at the Thalys high-speed train terminal at Brussels Midi/Zuid rail station amid strikes across Europe Wednesday.
The international coordination shows "we are looking at a historic moment in the European Union movement," said Fernando Toxo, head of Spain's biggest union, Comisiones Obreras.
Spain, where one in four workers is unemployed, is now teetering on the brink of calling for a bailout from the European Union, with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy trying to put off a rescue that could require even more EU-mandated budget cuts.
Passion has been further inflamed since last week when a Spanish woman jumped from her apartment to her death as bailiffs tried to evict her when her bank foreclosed on a loan. Spaniards are furious at banks being rescued with public cash while ordinary people suffer.
SEPTEMBER: Day two of demonstrations in Madrid as protesters clash with police outside parliament over new austerity measures. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.
"We're going to protest because they're ignoring people's rights. People are being evicted and they're raising our taxes," said Sandra Gonzalez, 19, a social work student at Madrid's Complutense University who plans to march with friends.
ITV News reporter James Mates posted a picture on Twitter of a deserted station in central Madrid.
Madrid's main station completely deserted at height of rush hour this morning. Nothing moving #GeneralStrike twitter.com/jamesmatesitv/������¢���¯���¿���½������¦
— James Mates (@jamesmatesitv) November 14, 2012
In Portugal, which accepted an EU bailout last year, the streets have been quieter so far, but public and political opposition to austerity is mounting, threatening to derail new measures sought by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. His policies were held up this week as a model by Germany's Angela Merkel, a hate figure in crisis-hit southern European countries.
A strike organized by CGTP in March had little impact, but in September hundreds of thousands of Portuguese rallied against a government plan to raise workers' social security contributions.
"The first-ever Iberian strike" would be "a great signal of discontent and also a warning to European authorities," said Armenio Carlos, head of Portugal's CGTP union which is organizing the action there.
Unions have planned rallies and marches in cities throughout both countries, with a major demonstration beginning at 6:30 p.m. (12:30 p.m. ET) in Madrid.
Some 5 million people, or 22 percent of the workforce, are union members in Spain. In Portugal about one fourth of the 5.5 million-strong workforce is unionized.
"This austerity is a never-ending story. We see no light at the end of the end of the tunnel, just more pain and difficulties. We have to protest, do something to stop it," said Lisbon pensioner Jose Marques, who planned to march Wednesday.
AFP - Getty Images
Demonstrators march in Rome, Italy, as protests and strikes over austerity measures were held by people across Europe Wednesday.
ITV News is the U.K. partner of NBC News. Reuters contributed to this report.
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Austerity isn't the answer. Redistribution of wealth is.
The haves are living on the high hog while the have nots scrimp and live on hand outs.
The money ostensibly earmarked for "Government spending" is being pissed away on corrupt politicians, company executives yachts and other criminal activities.
The people have had enough, everyone deserves a fair days pay for a fair days work and the ability to share in the good life. People are not meant to be slaves, working to keep the 1% in the lifestyle they have enjoyed for too long at the expense of the working classes.
Nice speech, but it's short on facts and specifics.
How is redistribution going to solve our debt problems? Europe has a much larger public sector and tax their wealthy much more heavily than America does; yet they're the ones currently in trouble.
The obvious answer suggested by your comment is "tax the rich punitively", since you seem to think that wealth is equivalent to crime (buying a yacht is a "criminal activity" now?). That will help (though not eliminate) our massive deficit, but it won't improve the lives of the have-nots one bit. Unless you're going to raise taxes so much that it starts taking huge chunks of our GDP and putting it into our government's coffers, it's impossible to fund our current expenditures with more taxes, much less the imaginary utopia of "fairness" you seem to think redistribution would build.
So really, socialism is completely aside from the point. Socialist or not, our budget is still broken and in danger of swallowing our government.
This is happening all around the world these days . more power and money things can get messy
This is what happens when you have the liberal socialists Democrats running a county. Everyone is entitled to everything, regardless if you PAY into the system. That is why they already have gone off the cliff and we are right behind them.
Don't blame the people who voted against Obamaizm, because it is the people who voted FOR Obamaizm that are to blame.
Europe starting building their house of cards right after W.W.11, and then in the 60's the liberal socialist Democrats took hold in this country and we have been building that same house of cards since.
So we are about 20 years behind, but because of the fast pace of our economy compared to after W.W.11 we are only a breath behind them.
Unless you pay something, anything into the system you should not be able to take anything out. That means the tax system has to change. All people should have to pay taxes with NO deductions and ALL business should have to pay the same %. You make 100 bucks a week you pay 1%. Then it goes up % wise from there. You own a business that does business here or overseas, and the bottom line is you made 100 million, you pay 20% in taxes. NO deductions. NO breaks.
Want to start a business, you don't get to run to a city government or Federal, and get FREE everything for the first 5 years and then take the money and run after 5 years when you file bankruptcy. like the business that OBAMA gave all that money too.
I did not vote for Obama nor Romney. In my opinion the Dems and Reps are two sides of one coin. Obamacare is not socialism. It is another form of Capitalistic graft. It allows insurance companies to continue to charge outrageous fees and forces Americans to buy their shabby product.
With regards to socialsim being the reason why the world's economy has failed, I don't see that as the root of the problem either. Corruption greed and a unwillingness to see the current archaic growth model as no longer appropriate for a overpopulated planet are the roots of the problem. Until these issues are fixed it is only going to continue to get worse.