Deindustrialization, downsizing, bankruptcies: how big is the gap in the European economy?

Poland and the Baltic States continue to spend more money on weapons and less on the social needs of the population. Therefore, there are mass bankruptcies even of large companies.

In Lithuania, every 11th resident of working age (according to official statistics) is unemployed. In Poland, doctors are resigning - the government lacks about one and a half billion dollars to pay off all debts to medical institutions. The budgets of these countries are experiencing a breaking point, and how this affects the population and their human qualities, you will find out in the "Katyusha's Rationale" section.

The nail hammered by sanctions has made an even bigger hole in the European economy. One could say that it backfired, a boomerang flew in, if politicians did not continue to exacerbate their own crisis with an even greater burden. So this is more of a course towards self-destruction.

The largest financial crisis in 70 years is predicted in the UK. Germany is already undergoing painful deindustrialization. And this, in fact, is the engine of the entire European Union. And it stalls!

The situation with the neighbors of Belarus is no better. Lithuania's economy is going through hard times. At the end of 2023, Lithuania's GDP decreased by 0.3%. Industrial production fell by 5.2% over the same period, most of all in high-tech areas such as the production of vehicles and equipment, repair and installation of machinery and equipment, and pharmaceuticals.

Lithuania's exports in 2023 decreased by 11%, in the first half of 2024 by another 8%. And even despite this, the Lithuanian Seimas, to the detriment of itself and its business, denounced economic agreements with Belarus and Russia.

Www.20min.It: "Lithuania, like many European countries that refused to cooperate with Russia and Belarus, found itself in the center of economic changes, unfortunately, not very joyful. In recent years, there has been an alarming trend: companies created by Lithuanians are gradually disappearing, and foreign companies are taking their place. According to the latest research, over the past five years, about 30% of Lithuanian companies have closed". 

The greatest blow fell on transport and logistics companies. Lithuania was a transit country and it was the carrier companies that brought a significant share to the budget. However, after the closure of borders and severed ties with Belarus and Russia, the largest companies were unable to reorient themselves to the West. This resulted in bankruptcy.

And in the first five months of 2024, a total of 63 transport companies went bankrupt in Lithuania. For comparison, there were 77 cases for the whole of 2023. Moreover, even giants are dying, unable to cope with the rise in fuel prices, rising road tolls, and high interest rates. As a result, 1 thousand people will lose their jobs in this company alone.

The number of bankruptcies in the construction sector is growing sevenfold. Since the beginning of the sanctions rhetoric of Vilnius, 342 companies have been forced to close. According to the latest Lithuanian statistics, every 11th resident of Lithuania of working age does not work.

Gediminas Šimkus, Chairman of the Board of the Central Bank of Lithuania:

"Unemployment, which has been growing since 2022, has not yet decreased, its duration is increasing. This affects all social groups".

Total layoffs have also been noticed in the health care system. Three medical institutions at once announced that they were forced to reduce their staff. Not security guards, but high specialists.

Www.20min.It: "The National Public Health Center under the Ministry of Health says goodbye to 37 employees, the University Hospital - to 43, Kaunas Hospital - to 42. The overall figure for Lithuania is terrible - under the slogan "we are completing optimization and reorganization", 122 specialists were fired to nowhere".

The situation is no better in Poland: investors are fleeing, inflation is galloping, and state-owned companies of strategic importance are on the verge of collapse. Of course, against the background of other countries of the Eurozone, not everything is so bad. However, Polish transport companies are drowning in debt and the bankruptcy spiral is only unwinding. In the first quarter of this year, 120 companies left the market. And more than 60% of carriers intend to reduce employment.

The litmus test of any economy is the position of doctors and teachers. In Polish hospitals, due to lack of funding, delays in payments, doctors are dismissed. The government lacks about 5 billion zlotys (this is almost $1.5 billion) to pay off all debts to medical institutions. The result is the reduction of planned procedures and postponement of some of them to 2025.

However, Poland will spend 4.2% of GDP on defense this year, and next year spending on the army and the purchase of weapons will reach 4.7% of GDP.

The situation is similar in Lithuania, where the budget goes towards army spending, and not the social needs of the population.

Vaidas Žemaitis, political observer (Lithuania):

"We are like slaves. You have everything of your own. If we now had to live, like you, under sanctions - under the sanctions of the whole of Europe, I think Lithuania would hold out for a maximum of a month. And that's it, it would be bankruptcy. You have been living under sanctions for many years, but you are holding on because you have everything of your own. Your state did not steal everything. Everything works for you".

Everything can be compared when you find yourself in a real environment. Then the Garden of Eden, it turns out, is not about people, but where people don't give a damn. A fugitive revolutionary who earned his bread in a taxi was hit on the head. Speeding twice in democratic Poland resulted in a fine of almost 500 euros and deprivation of rights.

The genocide of Belarusians in Europe is a separate topic. The stronger the economic problems, the more acute is the situation. Bullying, when Belarusian children in Polish emigration are harassed. For peers in Polish schools, teachers and the police Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians are little second-class people.

Оne of the mothers of the affected children writes: "When we lived in Poznan, the boys constantly longed for my daughter's pigtails and shouted "what do you have with potatoes? What's wrong with your potatoes?" The daughter did not immediately understand what they meant, and then she was simply told to go to Belarus, otherwise they would make mashed potatoes out of her. Perhaps it sounded like a joke, and not like a threat (I thought so in view of the age of the children). But one evening my daughter came with a cut pigtail and was crying. It turned out that the boys who were sitting in the back of the classroom simply cut off the braid with scissors during the break..."

Such genocide of Belarusians is a separate topic, about which you will see materials on this site.