Europe is working very well - by Bronwen Maddox
EUROPE is growing again, after several years of gloom. What is more, it may grow even faster next year.
The European Commission’s economic report this week is an astonishing compilation of good news, even if the bald figures are modest. Should the European Union itself be credited with having brought about this change? Not directly, by order from Brussels, to meet financial or commercial rules.
The improvement in Germany, the EU’s giant economy that affects the fortunes of all the others, appears to owe most to its businesses’ belated fear of competition from Eastern Europe and China. But the EU can be credited with providing some of that incentive, by bringing in the eight new members from the east and spurring competition. They are the fastest-growing economies within the EU — partly because of massive investment from Brussels — and also among the most competitive. The headline figure of the spring report is that the EU will grow at 2.3 per cent this year. That is 0.2 per cent better than the Commission reckoned in the autumn, and much faster than the 1.6 per cent the region achieved last year.
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