Nations must end 'brutal austerity' to tackle debt: Unions

EU finance ministers were warned tonight to abandon “brutal austerity” as the answer to the sovereign debt crisis and instead give struggling countries a chance to restore collapsing economies.

An emergency resolution agreed at the start of a conference of trade union leaders in Athens said the drastic measures so far taken in the form of financial bailouts for Ireland and Greece in return for severe domestic public spending cuts were plunging the countries further into debt.