In recent weeks, many European bureaucrats and national leaders have expressed optimism about the future of the economic situation in the European Union and have suggested that the worst of the crisis has passed. However, events over the past few days show that the crisis is not over and that it continues to have a deepening social impact on eurozone states.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Lisbon and other Portuguese cities March 2 to demand an end to the government's austerity measures and, in some cases, to call for the resignation of Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. The European Union considers the Portuguese government a success story in implementing austerity measures after it received a bailout in 2011. However, unemployment doubled in Portugal between 2008 and 2012 and currently affects more than 16 percent of the country's workforce.

The social impact of the European crisis has taken many shapes. In Spain, the government announced March 4 that more than five million people in the country are unemployed — the highest rate seen there in more than three decades — and a series of suicides committed by people who were to be evicted from their homes has spurred widespread protests. In Greece, reports suggest that the country is going through a shortage of medicines; hundreds of drugs, including antibiotics and anesthetics, are in short supply. In Portugal, the Secretary of State for Emigrant Communities recently said that up to 240,000 people (roughly 2 percent of the nation's population) have left the country since 2011, due in large part to unemployment and economic contraction. Each of these circumstances reveal the many social facets of the European crisis and its effects on the daily lives of citizens in the European periphery.
 
As the recurrent protests in Spain, Greece and Portugal show, there is a growing dissatisfaction in many of the EU member states with the austerity measures proposed by the European Union and applied by national governments. Such popular dissatisfaction recently led to the fall of the Slovenian government and the post-election political deadlock in Italy. Even in Bulgaria, which is not a eurozone member, protests over austerity measures and the rising cost of living led to the early resignation of the government.

Europe's social discontent has been driven by a combination of economic decline and political corruption. In Slovenia, the government was toppled by a no-confidence vote prompted by allegations of corruption against Prime Minister Janez Jansa. In Italy, the Five Star Movement based its campaign on harsh criticism of the corruption of ruling elites. In Spain, protests that originally focused on the country's economic troubles now also include dissatisfaction with the corruption charges that have been leveled against the ruling Popular Party.

These factors explain the growing crisis of legitimacy now facing the European Union's ruling elites. Independent of their ideological orientation, most EU governments have applied the austerity policies proposed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The traditional parties' lack of alternatives to austerity has generated a growing unease among local populations. As a result, support has grown for anti-establishment parties in some countries. Such crises of legitimacy are often accompanied by an increase in euroscepticism, since many of these new parties blend anti-establishment rhetoric with opposition to the European Union or Germany's leadership of the bloc.

The combination of economic, social and political crises growing in Europe concerns Brussels for a number of reasons. First, political uncertainty often generates instability in the financial markets. Second, and perhaps most important, the economic crisis creates an environment conducive to the growth of extremist political views, both from the left and from the right. In Europe, this process is reflected not only in the rising support for extremist parties — Greece's Golden Dawn party is just one example — but also in the spread of extremist ideas within the more moderate parties. Since the beginning of the economic crisis, many traditionally moderate parties have taken a tougher stance on issues like immigration and the free mobility of people in Europe.
 
Some members of the EU bureaucracy, including European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker, have recently expressed optimism about the European crisis. And several steps taken in mid-2012, such as the adoption of a permanent EU bailout fund and the promise of European Central Bank intervention in the bond markets, did indeed bring some relief to eurozone countries under extreme market pressure, especially Spain and Italy. However, from a political and social perspective, the European crisis is far from over.