Europeans on the age of austerity

Jun 26, 2010 English 1st Paragraph

Governments across Europe are forcing through tough austerity measures to tackle huge budget deficits. Here, people across the continent explain how they will be affected by cuts and voice their opinion on this age of austerity…

Click here to read this report on the BBC.
Then, if you like, come back to this page and make a comment about how your life has changed because of the economic crisis.

• We use the word age to talk about a particular period in history, for example, the Victorian age, the modern age, etc.
• The age of austerity in this article means a period of time in which you cannot have a comfortable life.
• A country has a budget deficit when the amount of the money that the government earns (from taxes etc) is less than the country has to spend (on repairing roads, maintaining hospitals, education etc)
• A cut is a reduction in something (= when there is less of something), for example a “price cut” means that the prices are lower than before.