Experts demand much bolder action on EU's growth strategy

Laurent Thomet, m&c.com, 30.01.2012

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With its gross domestic product (GDP) expected to stagnate at best in 2012, nobody is disputing that the European Union needs an injection of growth. […]

Another paper from a Brussels-based think-tank, the European Policy Centre (EPC), called for a similar exemption as part of a 'New Deal to help kick-start growth.' […]

The EPC paper - written by a German economist and a Greek one educated in Germany - took up another proposal of the German Council of Economic Experts, the temporary issuance of joint eurozone bonds to pay off debt over 60 per cent of GDP.

Such a provisional form of eurobonds 'would be in line with EU treaties and national constitutional requirements, which prohibit permanent collateralisation of debt,' Fabian Zuleeg and Janis A. Emmanoulidis suggested. […]

Sharing in the gloom, Zuleeg and Emmanoulidis warned against a 'muddle through' - or, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel prefers to call it - 'a step-by-step' approach to the eurozone's debt crisis.

'Without a decisive breakthrough ... the crisis will not just be with us in 2012 but will continue to drag down the EU until a painful but inevitable implosion with incalculable consequences for current and future generations,' the two analysts concluded.

For the original article see here.


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