Europe’s 15-Year Slump
The European Union’s supporters celebrate the survival of the euro, the fact that public debt is no longer the threat it was, and, crucially, that their mercantilist business model remains intact. But it has come at a steep price: Europe’s permanent stagnation and continuing fragmentation.
ATHENS – Europe is languishing in a long-term economic slump whose origins lay in Wall Street’s near-death experience in 2008. There have, of course, been subsequent spurts of growth (and hope), but these tend to fizzle out soon after they appear.