Originally published by Defining Ideas.
The slow-motion crisis of the European Union is the big story that
rarely gets the attention it deserves. Even an event like the recent
terrorist attack in France that left 17 dead is often isolated from the
larger political, economic, and social problems that have long plagued
the project of unifying the countries of Europe in order to harness its
collective economic power, and to avoid the bloody internecine strife
that stains its history.
On the economic front, the E.U.’s dismal economic performance over the last six years was summed up in a December headline in
Business Insider:
“Europe Stinks.” The 2008 Great Recession exposed the incoherence of
the E.U.’s economic structure, particularly its single currency, which
is held hostage by the diverse economic policies of sovereign nations.
The data tell the tale. The E.U.’s GDP grew 1 percent in 2013, anemic
compared to the U.S.’s 2.2 percent. In December 2014, unemployment in
the E.U. averaged 11.4 percent, while in the U.S. it was 5.6 percent. We
are troubled by our labor force participation rate of 62.7 percent, a
36-year low. But in the E.U., it was 57.5 percent in 2013. Our recovery
from the recession may be slow by our historical standards, but it is
blazing compared to the E.U.’s.
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