CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY

Social Movements and the Eurocrisis:

Unified in Grievance but Diversified in Protest

Dr. John FitzGibbon

4/14/2014

This paper investigates social movement mobilization and the Eurocrisis in the crisis

states of the EU periphery or the PIGS Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. Using Ireland as an in-depth case study it develops a framework by which further research

into why the nature of mobilization in these states has varied so much, despite the

common stimuli of financial and unemployment crises and the control of government

policy by the outside agents of the European Commission, European Central Bank

and International Monetary Fund. The paper takes focuses specifically on the

political opportunity structures of each state to account for the variated form of protest

in each state. Its starting point is that Imig and Tarrows (2000) assertion that Europe-wide mobilization would occur as European integration deepened has not

been borne out due to the lack of a shared political opportunity structure for the

singular experience of opposition to austerity policies in the four case studies to be expressed uniformly. From the initial evidence of the Irish case it concludes that

while there is no coordinated pan-European mobilization there is clear recognition of

the shared experience of austerity across the four states and increased cognisance of the need for alternative policies to be articulated at the EU level. From this

perspective the wider argument of the paper is that mobilization and protest in the

PIGS can be understood not only as opposition to specific EU policies but more fundamentally as an important signifier of the emergence of a European demos.

2

Social Movements and the Eurocrisis: Unified in Grievance but Diversified in

Protest1

Dr. John FizGibbon

Canterbury Christ Church University

This paper investigates social movement mobilization and the Eurocrisis in the crisis

states of the EU periphery or the PIGS Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain. Using

Ireland as an in-depth case study it develops a framework by which further research

into why the nature of mobilization in these states has varied so much, despite the

common stimuli of financial and unemployment crises and the control of government

policy by the outside agents of the European Commission, European Central Bank

and International Monetary Fund. The paper takes focuses specifically on the

political opportunity structures of each state to account for the variated form of protest

in each state. Its starting point is that Imig and Tarrows (2000) assertion that

Europe-wide mobilization would occur as European integration deepened has not

been borne out due to the lack of a shared political opportunity structure for the

singular experience of opposition to austerity policies in the four case studies to be

expressed uniformly. From the initial evidence of the Irish case it concludes that

while there is no coordinated pan-European mobilization there is clear recognition of

the shared experience of austerity across the four states and increased cognisance of

the need for alternative policies to be articulated at the EU level. From this

perspective the wider argument of the paper is that mobilization and protest in the

PIGS can be understood not only as opposition to specific EU policies but more

fundamentally as an important signifier of the emergence of a European demos.

In Greece there has been high profile mass protest that has turned frequently violent.

Spain witnessed sustained protest by young unemployed giving rise to the concept of

1 Extremely preliminary draft, do not quote without authors permission.

3

a generation of Los Indignados based on the protagonists in these protests. The

other two states, however, have not seen similar levels of social movement

mobilization. Though Portugal has experienced increasing protest it has almost

exclusively been funnelled through trade unions and pre-existing left-wing groups.

While Ireland has seen the most limited mobilization of all with only a handful of

ineffectual civil society groups who have had limited influence in terms of numbers

and sustainability.

Introduction

The Eurocrisis provides us with a unique opportunity to study a singular event that

has caused social movement mobilisations across different states. This is a very rare

event. To have such a concrete causal factor present in almost entirely the same

manner in several countries is a tremendous boon to scholars of social movements.

This paper seeks to utilize this situation to examine how social movements in

different countries responded to similar events. The paper focuses primarily on

Ireland but takes substantial empirical evidence from Greece, Portugal and Spain to

develop a snapshot of social movement mobilization in those states most dramatically

affected by the Eurocrisis. These states have come to be labelled as the PIGS a

somewhat derogatory phrase but one that has gained widespread usage in the media

and that will be used in this paper.

The media has given extensive exposure to the apparent wave of protest that emerged

followed the Eurocrisis with Greece being the focus of this coverage. Images of

violence in Syntagma square in Athens between a multitude of protest groups from

spontaneous citizen grass-roots movements to well-established anarchist networks

clashing with police, occupation of university buildings, mass demonstrations by

trade unions were a permanent feature of news reports of the Eurocrisis around the

world in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The Los Indignados movement of young

unemployed citizens in Spain of 2011, fit in with this media narrative of a growing

mass public movement around the as a response to the Eurocrisis. Protests in Greece

became increasingly violent as the economic crisis worsened and the street placed

ruling politicians under intense pressure causing governments to fall. Media

4

commentators and radical politicians cheered on these developments, certain that

mass public opposition to the EU brought about by the Eurocrisis expressed by protest

would lead to complete change in the economic and political systems of EU member

states. There was genuine fear amongst the European political elite that the Euro

currency and perhaps even the EU project itself could not sustain such contestation

from popular grass-roots protest.

But no such collapse occurred. The violence and mass protest of Greece was not

repeated on the streets of Dublin or Lisbon, while the Los Indignados movement of

Spains main cities gradually petered out. National and EU-level political actors

breather a huge sigh of relief at the apparent failure of mass public protest to occur in

the PIGS. Those same media commentators, radical politicians and other high profile

actors who had confidently predicted that citizens would tear down the established

order (Kelly: 2012) were left exasperated. The politicians and political parties who

had failed to manage the economy or provide adequate oversight of financial

institutions remained in Parliament. Banking elites who had caused the crisis in the

first place remained in their jobs and retained their bonuses. The economic and

political systems these actors created not only remained in place but began to

implement an economic and financial policy regime known as Austerity. This set of

policies has placed the burden of resolving the crisis on ordinary citizens and those

who for or are dependent on the state.

What went wrong? Why did the citizens of Ireland, Portugal and Spain not mobilize

to protest against the Eurocrisis and Austerity to anywhere near the extent that they

did in Greece? Why have citizens not mobilized to contest existing economic and

political elites who very clearly destroyed national economies and totally failed to do

their jobs? This paper is a first attempt to try and answer these questions. It begins

by initially discussing how social movement scholars have looked at the EU and EU

events more generally in mobilizing protest. Moving on it focuses on the Eurocrisis

itself, disaggregates it, and from a social movements perspective shows how it is

deeply complex and nuanced and many only constitutes a singular event in a very

loose sense. This has important implications for its framing as an issue of grievance

mobilization for social movements. The paper then uses the example of the Irish

Fiscal Compact Treaty referendum and the social movements who mobilized to

5

contest it. The referendum was a de facto vote and austerity and the paper argues that

important conclusions can be drawn from investigating the narrative surrounding the

debate on it. Finally, the paper concludes by developing a basic means of

operationalization to understand that the high profile protests in Greece were

themselves a singular event but that the Eurocrisis has promoted social movement

mobilization but in a far less explicit manner.

The Eurocrisis and Social Movement Mobilization

Before discussing the Eurocrisis itself it is important to clarify what type of actors this

paper is concerned with. This paper utilizes the extensive work of Tarrow on social

movement protest to focus not on groups that raise awareness of issues but on those

that take action to contest and provoke conflict (Tarrow: 1994). Such movements

come to represent a heightened and intense collective concern that has come to

express itself outside of institutionalised venues. Using the term, protest, therefore

not only allows this paper to analyze those movements who have mobilized not just

because of the Eurocrisis but also those who have sought to contest, oppose and

provide alternatives to the present economic and political situation as well.

Building on this work and applying it to a specifically EU sphere, Imig and Tarrow

(2000) developed the first analysis of pan-European social movement mobilization.

Their argument was that the growing influence of European integration in the lives of

ordinary citizens would be reflected in increased mobilization caused by EU level

events. Citizens would soon realize the similarity of events affecting them in

different states and begin pan-European mobilizations. The example they cited was

of Renault car factory workers in Belgium and France joining together to protest in

both their own countries and together in Brussels in front of European Commission

offices. This event, however, appears to have been singular and limited to specific

interest groups, trade unions and other producer groups, and to those in direct physical

contact with other states and the European institutions themselves. As FitzGibbon

(2013) has shown there has been no shortage of protest movement mobilization on the

European issue, just that this mobilization has been focused on the domestic and not

the European level for reasons of practicality, opportunity structures, and issue

framing.

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Following on from Imig and Tarrow (2000), della Porta and Caiani (2009) have

conducted an in-depth analysis of social movement engagement with the EU. Their

focus on the European Social Forum (a network of social and protest movements that

meets yearly across Europe) allowed them to get a wide perspective on social

movement engagement with the European issue. Their findings led them to conclude

that social movements were contesting the EU across the continent, but rather than

approaching it from a classic Eurosceptic perspective (Taggart: 1998) they describe

them as critical Europeanists (della Porta and Caiani, 2009: 180). In this criticism,

however, they have had little impact. Social movements have been largely excluded

from the EUs decision making process or even its deliberative process. The

European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) which was designed as a

constituent EU institution to encourage civil society engagement in the European

project has negligible influence and has become focused facilitating a few trusted

civil society groups to access the EU policy process as they are highly unlikely to

rock the boat (Ibid). Moreover the Convention for the Future of Europe which was

created specifically engage civil society was perceived as failing in the similar fashion

that of facilitating only positive pro-Europeanists from institutionalised civil society

groups to the exclusion of critical voices and genuine grass-roots movements.

From a social movements perspective Europe has come to be thought of as being a

potentially fertile issue, and future arena, of mobilization. Imig and Tarrow (2000)

argued it was only a matter of time before widespread pan-European mobilization

occurred as the process of European integration increased and precipitated a response

from social movement activists. della Porta and Caiani (2009), however, identified

the reason for the failure of this hypothesis to develop. They highlight the lack of a

shared supranational sphere and the resultant inability to create a shared European

frame of experience with which to mobilize civil society, as the central reason for the

failure of pan-European mobilization. Additionally they argue that while there has

been no shortage of European frames for individual social movements, there has been

a distinct lack of awareness of the commonness of this experience. It is only through

specific arenas such as the European Social Forum that the awareness of this common

experience critical engagement with, and contestation of, European integration has

become apparent.

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The social movement context of European integration has not gone unnoticed by

scholars. Indeed some of the most influential academics in the discipline have drawn

attention to it as a new frontier in mobilization and supranational mobilization in

particular. This literature emphasises grass-roots movements as opposed to a wider

spectrum of civil society groups who have long been involved at the supranational

level but whose European level representatives have become de-facto institutionalised

in the EU decision making system (Kohler-Koch: 2010). This is particular the case

with groups such as the European Trade Union Federation, Greenpeace and other well

established civil society groups. Thus from the perspective of the EU, civil society

has been brought firmly into the centre of the EUs policy making process. What the

social movement literature has pointed out, however, is that genuine grass-roots

movements who provide critical, though still pro-European, voices of ordinary

citizens have been passively excluded from the EU. Compounding this exclusion has

been the absence of a shared arena of mobilization for civil society based protestors to

collaborate together and thus to increase the strength of their contestation. Instead EU

focused protest has been almost totally nationally based, subject to the vagaries of

political opportunities for each different member state despite significant overlap in

the issues of grievance of those protest groups who have mobilized.

The obvious following on question to this review of the literature is what happens

when there is the tremendous exogenous shock of the economic and financial crisis

hereafter labelled the Eurocrisis to a potential shared European arena and a shared

consciousness of this experience? European integration is very much a reactive

process therefore can we expect social movement interaction with it to respond to

events and change how it functions as well?

What is the Eurocrisis?

This paper began with the assertion that the Eurocrisis was a singular event that had

strong potential to greatly facilitate mass protest movement formation to contest the

EU. But it is fundamentally important to understand what the Eurocrisis itself

actually is. Indeed even the term Eurocrisis used for this paper is itself not the only

accepted label for the situation under discussion. For the purposes of this paper it

does perfectly encapsulates the Euro-centric (both EU and Euro currency) nature of

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the situation and its calamitous and highly negative nature earning the term crisis.

The more broader term used is the economic and financial crisis in the Eurozone or

the sovereign debt crisis or the Eurozone Crisis amongst many others. All of these

terms are perfectly acceptable but fail to capture the meaning of the crisis for both the

Eurozone and the EU itself, simultaneously, beyond just the economic and financial

problems.

There are numerous explanations for the origin of the Eurocrisis. The most common

narrative (Lane: 2012) is that the wider global financial crisis that started in 2008

originally caused by banks holding sub-prime US mortgages overextending

themselves and once the first tranche of loans defaulted there was an almost

instantaneous reduction in credit in the global market choking off economic growth.

Major European banks also held significant amounts of these mortgages and

experienced similar bad debt problems. What made the crisis worse in some

European states, especially Ireland and Spain, was that they both had an extremely

indebted banking system, almost totally property related. These banking systems

were thus extremely exposed to the crash and thus experienced the sharpest reduction

in credit and ultimately the most severe economic reverse. This was compounded

further by the decision of some countries to bailout their banks and to ultimately

convert bank debt to sovereign national government debt. A more Euro specific

argument (Stiglitz: 2013) is that it was the institutional design of the Eurozone itself

that caused the economic damage. Failing to develop centralised financial policies

and a common banking oversight mechanism greatly exacerbated asymmetries in the

Eurozone between those states with export-orientated economies and those with

economies based on domestic consumption. Put more simply the very institutional

design of the Euro currency union was incomplete and rather than uniting its members

it exacerbated differences between the economies of different countries. A further,

more politically motivated, narrative (Schaeuble: 2011) is that those countries that are

now suffering the most from the outcome of the Eurocrisis are those that were the

worst governed, that spent borrowed money recklessly, failed to adequately supervise

their banks or to even comprehend the responsibilities as members of the Euro to

manage their finances prudently.

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Synthesising this brief analysis of the Eurocrisis a clear set of common causal factors

are identifiable, namely a banking crisis, a sovereign wealth crisis and a crisis of

competent government management in the four states this paper is concerned with.

What is less clear, however, from the general term Eurocrisis is that each of the

different countries experience of the Eurocrisis was caused in turn by separate

elements of each of these causal factors. Blyth (2013) in particular has been most

forceful in arguing this position. His fundamental criticism has been that the

Eurocrisis has many different causes in many different states and therefore the policy

response of Austerity is doomed to failure.

Taking his argument and breaking it down into the constituent countries of this study,

in Table 1, shows that far from being a singular event, the Eurocrisis has a variety of

fundamentally different causes, in addition to the three overarching narratives

discussed above. This has important implications for social movement activists and

their ability to frame both the debate and their narrative of the Eurocrisis. Media

outlets have consistently referred to a generalised wave of protest across the three

states without alluding to the specific framing of mobilization in each state (Rachman:

2011). What academic analyses that have been completed have rightly tended to

focus on firstly understanding the nature of protest in each country separately. A few

edited volumes have sought to draw wider comparisons between those countries

categorized as the PIGS group of states, but as of yet this paper is the only one to do

so in a systematic manner in a single piece of work.

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Table 1: Condensed Causal factors for Eurocrisis in each of the PIGS Country Cause of Economic and Financial Crisis

Greece Long term structural failings of Greek economy exposed with

crisis; Government misreporting of budget deficit; Government

mismanagement of economy and finances; Greek banks

overexposed to Greek government debt

Ireland Property market collapse, resultant collapse in government

income from property industry; banking collapse due to

overexposure to property market; failed government bank bailout

policy nationalises worthless bank debt leaving national debt at

unsustainable levels

Portugal Long term structural failings of Portuguese economy exposed

with credit tightening; government failure to reform economy,

promote growth

Spain Property market collapse, resultant collapse in government

income from property industry; regional government owned

banking system collapses, central government forced to bailout

regions; government failure to diversify employment away from

related industries of property and tourism

Adapted from Blyth (2013), Lane (2012) and Stiglitz (2013)

The second point to be made in relation to comprehending the Eurocrisis is that it is

composed of two very distinct elements. Firstly, as discussed above, are the causal

factors of the crisis. Secondly, however, there is the policy response to the crisis.

The first element does not appear to have generated the basis for a shared feeling of

mobilization. Banking systems in Ireland and Spain while heavily leveraged on

property had fundamentally different dynamics. Ireland nationalised its bank debt

through a slow burn process that began in 2008 but where the extent of the losses

only really became apparent in 2011. In Spain the central government implemented a

domino strategy of rescuing each regional bank, or Casa, as they collapsed under the

weight of property debts. Similarly to Ireland it was a long-drawn out deeply

complicated financial process which the Spanish government repeatedly insisted

would end quickly. Government finances in Portugal were a victim of long term

problems of an inefficient and unreformed economy. It was a question of when not if

they would collapse when the global financial crisis, let alone the Eurocrisis, struck.

The causal factors behind Greeces experience of the Eurocrisis are the outlier in this

situation. Fraudulent government finances and the totally unsustainable nature of the

Greek banking system were revealed almost immediately at the onset of the

Eurocrisis. Rather than the long drawn out banking rescue processes in Ireland and

Spain or the widely perceived inevitability of problems in Portugal, the entirety of the

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Greek economic system, both private and public, collapsed in a matter of months once

the global financial crisis struck Europe.

If it is accepted that the causes of the Eurocrisis were so fundamentally different in

each state then it is obvious as to why it did not provide the spark to light up the

streets of Ireland, Portugal and Spain with protests similar to Greece. Therefore it is

to the second element of the Eurocrisis, the policy response of Austerity that must

be examined next to investigate if it had the potential to launch a wave of European

protest.

Austerity as the Real Eurocrisis

In the past two or so years Austerity has come to be construed as the true meaning of

the Eurocrisis. In this sense we are looking at mobilization based on the policy

response or outcome of the Eurocrisis and not necessarily on the causes of the crisis

itself. To understand this proposition the fundamental nature of what actually

constitutes Austerity will be discussed. Blyth (2013) has provided a searing critique

of the concept of austerity that has gathered widespread appreciation he labels it as

a dangerous idea. Unlike the cause of the Eurocrisis the policy developed to deal

with it, Austerity, can be understood in a fairly uniform manner across the three case

studies. The difference has been in the application of austerity. While Ireland has

seen the deepest cuts in spending because of its far higher GDP rate, it has remained

by the far richest per capita of the four states. Despite Portugal not having to engage

in as much spending cuts as Ireland, increased taxation as Greece or structural

reforms as Spain, it has endured the longest period of zero and negative growth.

Amongst the PIGS states Greece is by far the greatest outlier. Looking at Tables 2.1,

and 2.2 the impact of the Eurocrisis in terms of unemployment rates and negative

growth, with Greece in particular being impacted across all two measures, is clearly

visible. Breaking down the experience of austerity shows that while each of the

states have undergone the enactment of austerity policies, not all have had the same

set of policies enacted in the same manner, to the same extent and with the same

effect. To understand austerity further a deeper contextualisation of it must be made

which goes in tandem with the political economic analysis of Blyth.

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Table 2.1: Unemployment Rate in the PIGS

Eurodata: 2014

Table 2.2 GDP Growth Range % in the PIGS

Eurodata: 2014

Austerity has been bundled together as part of bailout packages of emergency

funding to pay for the current account deficits of Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Spain

has not entered a bailout agreement but has implemented austerity along broadly

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similar lines to those of the other two states. These bailout agreements have been

negotiated with, and overseen, in each of the three states by the Troika consisting of

the IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank. Austerity is therefore

not simply just the package of economic and financial policies that Blyth details, it

also the symbol of the subservience of these states to supranational European actors

and the IMF that are perceived to have forced these measures on the states. This is

an important point as it allows for the, correct, perception among citizens that

Austerity is not just an issue to contest with the national government but toward the

EU as well.

Austerity is comprised of a series of policies (Lane: 2012). Principally it is centred on

fiscal policies dramatic reduction in government spending in combination with a

sustained increase in taxation. One does not need to be have an economic training to

come to the conclusion that this will result in the immediate cessation of growth and

will cause deflation. Neither does one have to have a training in public finances to

understand that the burden of fiscal readjustment will fall on those most dependent on

the state and those with the lowest disposable income. In other words those marginal

in society the unemployed, elderly, incapacitated, students, lowest income and

those in the squeezed middle who pay a disproportionate share of taxes relative to

their incomes.

In addition to the fiscal element of Austerity there are also more substantive and

specific long term economic policies (Lane: 2012). These almost exclusively focus

on the liberalisation of previously sheltered parts of the economy such as notaries,

taxi drivers, pharmacists and their opening up to market competition. Additionally

Austerity programmes have laid out detailed plans with corresponding timelines for

the sale of state assets. In the case of Greece where the government dominates this

economy this has amounted to scores of billions of Euro in a country littered with

national cultural and historical treasures. Finally, deep structural reforms of domestic

economies have also been prioritised in labour markets. This has meant the firing of

thousands of civil servants and the end of guaranteed security of tenure for millions of

others. The introduction of flexible labour contracts for young people to encourage

employers to take them on without the risk of having to give them guaranteed jobs.

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Table 3: Implementation of Austerity in the PIGS Cause of Crisis Focus of Austerity Policies

Greece Total collapse of state finances

Tax increases, public service

redundancies, state assets sales,

liberalisation of areas of economy,

reduction in state spending, labour

market reforms

Ireland Nationalisation of private bank

debt

Spreading of tax base, significant

reduction in state spending, some

state asset sales

Portugal Long term deterioration in state

finances

Spreading of tax base, significant

reduction in state spending, some

state asset sales, labour market

reforms

Spain Nationalisation of private/local

authority bank debt

Labour market reforms, significant

reduction in state spending

Blyth (2013), Lane (2012) and Stiglitz (2013)

Taking all of these elements of austerity into consideration it is obvious that there

are numerous avenues for grievances across a wide spectrum of society. As Table 3

shows there was an obvious pattern of policies implemented across the PIGS states.

Moreover, wrapping up these elements in documents commonly known as bailout

programmes, makes the connection between their agreement between national

governments and the Troika and their impact on everyday life clearly comprehensible

for all citizens. Adding to this apparent perfect storm of mobilization conditions

across the four countries is the enforcement of Austerity by outside unelected and

apparently unaccountable supranational actors. If the economic and political collapse

caused by the incipient Eurocrisis could not provoke an immediate and sustained

mobilization then surely the implementation of Austerity must have?

The Irish Referendum on the Fiscal Compact Treaty

Leading Irish opinion writers Fintan OToole and Gene Kerrigan have published

many articles from 2009 on lambasting the Irish public for their failure to take to the

streets to oppose Austerity and to demand radical political and social change. This

frustration was further deepened by the passage through referendum of the EU Fiscal

Compact Treaty in June 2012. This Treaty enshrined the basic principles of Austerity

policies into Irish law principally budget deficit targets of no greater than -3% of

GDP and government debt of no greater than 66% of GDP. Irish citizens were given

a de facto veto over the implementation of Austerity in Ireland and potentially the

15

Eurozone itself (FitzGibbon: 2013). Yet they voted Yes by a decisive majority of

60.3% to 39.7%.

What explains such behaviour? The Irish public reeling from four years of Austerity,

bank bailouts and political failure still voted to accepted the policy outcome of the

Eurocrisis. This paper will now examine those protest movements who mobilized to

contest the Fiscal Compact Treaty. Based on a series of interviews with the leading

organisers and founders of these movements it examines the reasons why they

mobilized, why they did not mobilize before and why they think the Treaty was

passed.

Though several trade unions came out decisively against the Treaty, the main trade

union body, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), did not take a position on the

Treaty. While in the past ICTU had been a supporter of some European treaties, and

ambiguous on others, it did not follow the strong condemnation of the Treaty by the

European Trade Union Congress (ETUC). This was the first time the ETUC had come

out against a European Treaty and their language in opposing it was unequivocal: the

new Treaty will undermine the support of the population for European integration,

and it will stifle growth and increase unemployment (ETUC: 2012). Yet despite a

vote at the ICTU general conference authorizing the general committee to advocate a

No vote, they did not make a recommendation either way. Trade union leaders from

the private sector argued that this was because of fear amongst the large and dominant

public sector unions that a No vote would have serious repercussions for jobs and

wages for those in government employment (Devoy: Author Interview). Fear was the

main reason behind this failure of the centre-left to mobilize. The possibility of

Ireland being cut out of ESM funding, and thus having to reduce its public deficit

more quickly, caused many trade unionists, Labour party members, and those reliant

on the public sector, to largely withdraw from the campaign (Horan; ODonoghue:

Author Interviews).

While the Irish trade union movement has organised the largest protests against

Austerity and the Irish government response to the Eurocrisis of bailing out Irish

banks, these protests have been largely one off events, uncoordinated in a systematic

manner and offering only limited changes to government economic policy. From the

interviews conducted it was clear that the sentiment in the trade union movement and

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centre-left civil society groups was one of fear toward the future of the country if the

government did not implement its policies broadly in-line with the bailout

agreements.

This is not to say, however, that simply because the political centre-left did not

mobilize against the Treaty, that there was total lack of civil society engagement with

the Treaty referendum. On the contrary the referendum saw the mobilization of just

as many, if not more, genuine grass-roots protest movements to oppose the Treaty as

had other EU related referendums. These various civil society groups used the

campaign to articulate their opposition to government policies public anger at

government Austerity policies and the European dimension of these same policies.

These issues ranged from the failure of the Treaty to re-negotiate Irelands bank

bailout and stop the on-going payment of bonds to the failed Irish banks, a moral

outrage that campaigners argued was forced on Ireland by the ECB and the French

and German governments. Other groups sought to link the Treaty to the passing of

increased taxes, specifically charges for rural sewage treatment, household charges

(property taxes) and the introduction of water charges (Reynolds; OReilly: Author

interviews). Their argument was that the neo-liberal slant of the Treaty was the basis

for such charges. The European dimension of the Treaty was the focus of the

Another Europe is Possible group. Though small and formed only a few weeks

before the referendum, they sought to highlight, from a non-party aligned position, the

need to reject the neo-liberal austerity policies of the Treaty and participate in a

Europe wide change in direction toward more social and citizen focused policies

(ODonoghue: Author interview).

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Table 4: Indicative List of Irish Protest Movements Opposed to Fiscal Compact

Treaty 2012

Issue/s of Mobilization Support Euro.

Int. Y/N

Offered

Alternative

Policies

Advocated EU

withdrawal

Another Europe

is Possible

End to Austerity;

Renegotiation of Fiscal

Compact to focus on

jobs, economic

expansion

Y Y N

Farmers

Against Europe

Reversal of

charges/taxes on

property, water, sewage

N Y N

Turf Cutters and

Contractors

Association

Reversal of

charges/taxes on

property, water, sewage,

specific environment

regulations

N N N

Ballyhea Says

No

Denationalisation of

Bank debt, end to

austerity;

Renegotiation of Treaty

to focus on jobs,

economic expansion

Y Y N

Cir End to austerity N N N

Libertas Denationalisation of

Bank debt

Y Y N

Citizens Against

Charges

End to austerity;

Reversal of

charges/taxes on

property, water, sewage;

Renegotiation of Treaty

to focus on jobs,

economic expansion

N Y N

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The Irish Fiscal Compact Treaty referendum campaign thus provides an insight into

how social movements have viewed the Eurocrisis. Irish citizens were provided with

a direct vote on an EU treaty that essentially enshrined Austerity policies into law.

Civil society responded by mobilizing as wide a diversity of groups as have mobilized

for any previous EU referendum. As Table 4 shows above, the vast majority of

movements who mobilized to oppose the Fiscal Compact Treaty did not advocate

withdrawal from the EU or withdrawal from the Euro itself. What these movements

did was take the opportunity to articulate either an alternative set of policies for how

they envisioned European integration or to directly challenge specific Austerity

policies that directly affected them. As the majority of groups came from a left-wing

grass-roots background their alternative policies were generally focused on the

changing of EU economic policy away from Austerity toward a Keynesianist

expansionary policy of state spending and investment. Similarly the policies that they

opposed were those they deemed to be unfairly falling on those that had not caused

the crisis, ordinary citizens, instead of those that had banking and political elites.

For these movements the opportunity of the referendum was not just to contest

Austerity but to provide an alternative policy that could be enacted at the European

level. Previous to this, movements that have mobilized against European integration

have focused just on securing the defeat of the European issue in question and not on

providing alternative policies. Additionally it facilitated them to frame their highly

specific issues water charges, rural sewage inspection payments as direct

examples of how the Eurocrisis was affecting ordinary citizens in their local area.

Protest and the Eurocrisis: What went wrong?

From what this paper has discussed several key points toward understanding why far

greater levels of mobilization did not occur to contest the Eurocrisis. Firstly, the

paper showed that the Eurocrisis itself is not a singular event. It was caused by

different factors in each of the four countries. Therefore it should not have been

expected for Ireland, Portugal and Spain to follow Greek citizens in their engagement

of mass protest and direct, frequently violent, contestation of their government.

Secondly, the analysis of the Irish Fiscal Compact Treaty referendum campaign

showed that the Eurocrisis and the resultant policy of Austerity has forced social

movements to provide an alternative to the existing policies of European integration.

19

The Irish centre-left was almost wholly absent for this debate, principally because

they could not formulate an agreed, consistent and viable alternative to Austerity. As

Austerity has been promoted as the solution to the present disastrous economic

situation, social movements have had to come up with their own alternative policies.

Advocating the status quo is not possible, while opposing policies without providing

an alternative merely reinforces the narrative of governments/pro-austerity actors that

there is no alternative other than to continue to pursue the existing policy framework.

There is little doubt that Austerity had the unique potential to unite the citizens of the

PIGS to oppose and contest a set of policies imposed on them by supranational

institutions.

What these points emphasise is the extremely difficult situation presented by the

Eurocrisis to potential protest movements. They have to firstly comprehend the

complex economic and financial background to Austerity. Then they have to

progress on to develop a clear and somewhat viable alternative set of policies that

have agreement amongst the membership of the protest movement. Political parties

with extensive policy development capabilities have difficulty achieving such ends.

Similarly such an endeavour is difficult for well established movements on

longitudinal issues. Responding to the rapidly unfurling, and deeply complex, events

in the Eurocrisis has therefore fallen into two areas. Firstly, there has been the almost

instantaneous and direct confrontational protest, without the construction of

alternative policies. The most obvious example of this is Greece where the rapid

deterioration of the economy and the implosion of the government created a distinct

environment of chaos which was mirrored in instant violent protest on the streets of

Athens and other Greek cities. Secondly, after a period of absorption protest

movements mobilized to contest austerity as they have come to an understanding of

the causes of the Eurocrisis in their own country and how the policies of Austerity

directly impact themselves and their communities. This gives the appearance in some

states that civil society has not responded to either the Eurocrisis or Austerity more

specifically. In Ireland there was no mass protest as in Greece, no singular seismic

protest as in Iceland but some five years after the start of the financial crisis there

have been many protest movements campaigning against specific Austerity policies

from the introduction of water charges, the roll out of a property tax, cutbacks to

20

special education assistants, among many others. These directly targeted protests are

genuinely grass-roots movements that have developed in many different parts of the

country alongside attempts by established political parties to raise awareness of the

Austerity policies in question.

The immediacy of the Eurocrisis and its initial focus on complicated macroeconomic

issues such as government bonds, subordinated debt holders, monetary policy, made it

difficult both for citizens to comprehend and protest movements to mould into a

comprehensive issue frame of mobilization in all of the countries bar the outlier of

Greece. Once the Eurocrisis evolved and policies of Austerity were implemented, the

highly specific focus of the bailout agreements on policies that impacted directly on

specific groups in society made the potential for issue framing far easier.

Compounding this was the forced implementation of Austerity by the international

institutions of the Troika. The allowed for a deeper framing of specific issues water

charges (Ireland), youth unemployment (Spain), pension cuts (Portugal) as not just

unfair but also undemocratically imposed by foreign actors.

Taking these points into consideration, this paper argues that not only should the

Eurocrisis be seen as a multi-faceted event but also as one consisting of two waves

of protest mobilization. The first wave was that of the immediate impact of the

original global economic and financial crisis. This rapidly impacted Greece before all

the other states whose experience of the Eurocrisis was longer drawn out. The second

wave was that of Austerity, more precisely the direct impact of Austerity policies on

specific communities and groups in societies. As the mass public protests in Greece

have greatly reduced, protests in the other three states have started to increase. The

fundamental difference being that these are not mass public demonstrations in

national capitals but invariably small, local and highly targeted grass-roots organised

protests. Looking on in to the future this paper makes the argument that a further

third wave of protest will occur, one that finally makes the leap into a genuine

European arena of contestation. This protest will take place at the European

Parliament elections in May of 2014 where, as all opinion polls indicate, the dominant

centre-right who have largely been responsible for the policy of Austerity will suffer

significant setbacks to the centre-left and radical-left. Moreover, Eurosceptic parties

and politicians look equally set to take a significant increase in vote share.

21

Conclusion: Waves, not wave, of Protest

Media outlets and other social figures in many countries have been quizzical as to the

apparent unwillingness of the citizens of Ireland, Portugal and Spain for failing to

follow the example of the Greek counterparts by taking to the streets amid a wave of

protest. This paper argues that such a perspective is myopic. Instead we should be

looking at the waves of protest that have emerged, are emerging, and more than likely

will emerge to contest the deeply complex and persistent Eurocrisis.

In this paper Greece has emerged as the significant outlier relative to the other states

who have also undergone direct application of Austerity. Expecting the citizens of

these states to take the streets as their counterparts in Athens had conveniently ignores

the radically different set of circumstances Greece has experienced. Comments on the

apparent lack of protest mobilization have been fixated on the lack of large violent

street demonstrations. What they ignore, however, is the growing number of grass-

roots movements who are mobilizing to contest Austerity in their own communities

within a very specific issue framework.

No doubt there will be tremendous surprise when the result of the 2014 European

Parliament elections show substantial gains for Austerity opponents and Eurosceptics.

This paper has argued that the Eurocrisis is multi-faceted and long-drawn-out event.

It should come as little surprise that protest movement mobilisation in contestation of

it has these same features.

22

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Author Interviews

Eamon Devoy, General Secretary of the TEEU.

Blair Horan, Former ICTU EUTC Rapporteur.

Siobhn ODonoghue, Founder and CEO Another Europe is Possible. James Reynolds, President Farmers Against Europe.

Sen OReilly, Citizens Against Charges.