The debt crisis now ravaging the euro zone has seen governments cut spending, including to welfare programmes, and raise taxes. Unemployment is rising and many Europeans are planning for a bleaker future. Romanian mayor Florin Cazacu staged a six-day hunger strike last week over cuts to heating subsidies which meant his town of Brad could not afford fuel oil and 10,000 of its residents, public institutions and hospital faced a bitter winter. "My hunger strike was an extreme solution, a mayor's cry for help for the community," Cazacu told Reuters by phone on Sunday. He called off the strike on Saturday after central government agree to pay 1 million lei ($304,000), but said that would only cover 15-20 days of heating for the town where temperatures can fall as low as minus-30 degrees Celsius. "So what is needed is for the government to allot 2,500 tonnes of fuel oil from state reserves to cover heating needs for the entire winter," said the mayor, whose town hall had a shortfall of 3 million lei to buy fuel oil. The government of Romania the EU's second-poorest member state, where the average wage is less than 400 euros ($530) a month cut salaries and raised tax to plug its budget gap. Wood-burning stoves, once a symbol of poverty, are making a comeback as Greeks balk at soaring heating bills after the government in Athens raised energy taxes to help plug finances. "Business is up 100 percent," said Costas Mitsionis, who sells the wood burners and is a rare smiling face in a market in Athens. "Everybody is flocking to buy, poor and rich, alike. This crisis has put the fear of God into everyone." Even in wealthy Germany, Europe's paymaster and biggest hope of a bailout lifeline, the crisis has led to a surge in soup kitchens, according to the author of a book on poverty. "There are now about 700 soup kitchens across the country where poor people can go for a free warm meal," said Ulrich Schneider, who is managing director of the Parity Welfare Association. "Soup kitchens were almost unheard of in Germany a decade ago. Now about 1 million people each day are going." He added: "You're not going to find a soup kitchen in parts of cities like Berlin where the tourists go. They're usually pretty much out of sight and out of mind."