Looking at the world GDP listing (below), Europe certainly is not down and
out as some people say or even hoping for. A positive result for Europe has
been that given the political and economic turmoil of the past months, EU
leaders are now more aware than ever before that political reform is needed to
strengthen the Union into a more cohesive political and economic block. It is
also clear to most of the EU member states now that the Union can only work with
the motto: "united they will stand and divided they will fall". The first
example of this has been that former arch political rivals in Greece have now
agreed to form a "unity government" in order to meet the challenges presented to
them by their membership in the EU. In Italy the same process is also on the
verge of happening.
Now what about the BRIC countries? Brazil, Russia, India, and China have made inroads and some people even seem to believe there has been a power shift favoring them. The truth is that for the time being there is no way this will happen, given the level of their GDP, standard of living, personal income, and spending power. It will be a long time, if ever, that they ( maybe with the exception of China) can become an immediate economic threat to the EU or the US. Even though they have made exceptional economic gains as a result of their manufactured exports to the West, their wealth has not yet benefited the local populations. In the case of China and Russia, human rights and democracy issues are also clouding long term stability.
In Europe the political environment within individual EU member states remains probably far more complex to solve than the economic problems the block is facing. For starters, in upcoming European elections we can expect to see every present Government, be it Conservative or Liberal being replaced by one of the opposite political ideology. Italy will go from Center Right to Center Left, Spain will go from Center Left to Center Right and France from Center Right to Center left etc. etc. In Britain we also could see a major clash between Eurosceptics and the Government, whereby Britain either drops out of the EU or becomes more closely linked with the EU. The latter seems more likely, because more than 70% of UK trade is with EU member state countries
Looking medium to long term at the future it seems that overall one can still be quite optimistic. For one, the direct result of popular revolts in the Middle East, London, Spain, the Occupy Wall Street movement etc., will speed up a change of the trickle down capitalism we know today, because it will be forced to reinvent itself with a more social twist and reduced power for corporations. There also appears to be an underlying current in the Far East, Latin America, the Middle East and Europe to decouple themselves from US economic, financial and political dominance. On the surface the US also seems to be less enthused to remain the world's number one watch dog, not that they don't want to be, but because the country is basically broke. Europe seems to be picking up the slack left behind by the US and one can already see this by their increased involvement in Libya, Syria and several countries in Africa..
Now what about the BRIC countries? Brazil, Russia, India, and China have made inroads and some people even seem to believe there has been a power shift favoring them. The truth is that for the time being there is no way this will happen, given the level of their GDP, standard of living, personal income, and spending power. It will be a long time, if ever, that they ( maybe with the exception of China) can become an immediate economic threat to the EU or the US. Even though they have made exceptional economic gains as a result of their manufactured exports to the West, their wealth has not yet benefited the local populations. In the case of China and Russia, human rights and democracy issues are also clouding long term stability.
In Europe the political environment within individual EU member states remains probably far more complex to solve than the economic problems the block is facing. For starters, in upcoming European elections we can expect to see every present Government, be it Conservative or Liberal being replaced by one of the opposite political ideology. Italy will go from Center Right to Center Left, Spain will go from Center Left to Center Right and France from Center Right to Center left etc. etc. In Britain we also could see a major clash between Eurosceptics and the Government, whereby Britain either drops out of the EU or becomes more closely linked with the EU. The latter seems more likely, because more than 70% of UK trade is with EU member state countries
Looking medium to long term at the future it seems that overall one can still be quite optimistic. For one, the direct result of popular revolts in the Middle East, London, Spain, the Occupy Wall Street movement etc., will speed up a change of the trickle down capitalism we know today, because it will be forced to reinvent itself with a more social twist and reduced power for corporations. There also appears to be an underlying current in the Far East, Latin America, the Middle East and Europe to decouple themselves from US economic, financial and political dominance. On the surface the US also seems to be less enthused to remain the world's number one watch dog, not that they don't want to be, but because the country is basically broke. Europe seems to be picking up the slack left behind by the US and one can already see this by their increased involvement in Libya, Syria and several countries in Africa..
Major changes are on the way. The Chinese would
say: "these are interesting times."
GDP List
Country GDP (millions of US$) - Total world World GDP 62,911,253
1
European Union 16,242,256
2
United States 14,526,550
3
China, People's Republic
5,878,257
4
Japan 5,458,797
5
Germany 3,286,451
6
France 2,562,742
7
United Kingdom 2,250,209
8
Brazil 2,090,314
9
Italy 2,055,114
10
India 1,631,970
No comments:
Post a Comment