[...] In the absence of currency devaluation or exchangerate variations, wage compression for internal devaluation was meant to increase competitiveness. [...] Brussels, capital of the EU , is somewhat of a symbol. One in three city inhabitants is at risk of poverty. One child in four grows up in a family where no one has a job. Even temporarily forgetting about Greece, Brussels is no exception. Over the last decade, the number of working poor has doubled in Germany. In Italy, over 8 million people live in relative poverty. In France, 9 million people, of which 3 million are children, are poor. Portugal lost half a million workers between 2011 and 2014. While Portuguese workers were fleeing their country, big corporations saw their money reserves increase from 750 billion euros to 3,200 billion. The rich and wealthy meanwhile are seated on mountains of money, or rather, hiding them in tax havens across the world.