Europe’s (misguided) constitution of economic prosperity

Publishers Abstract:
President Barroso started his preface to "Europe 2020. A European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth" (hereafter: "Europe 2020") with the following bold statement that 2010 must mark a new beginning. He wants Europe to emerge stronger from the economic and financial crisis. This was in early March 2010, a month before the sovereign debt crisis hit Europe the first time.

When drafting his preface to "Europe 2020", Barroso could not, therefore, know that the year 2010 would indeed mark a new beginning, yet of a process exactly the opposite of what "Europe 2020" wanted to start. Nor could he know that soon after "Europe 2020" was adopted, European growth would be neither smart, nor sustainable, nor inclusive, because there would be, except for a relatively few Member States, no growth in the Union at all. Similarly, he could not know that Member States of the euro area club would be busy either attempting to avoid sovereign bankruptcies or devising plans for the monetary union's disintegration.

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