Two types of Europe. Demotix/S. Struck. All rights reserved.Sometimes the European Central Bank dares speak truth to power. The recent flagship annual meeting in Sintra, Portugal, was one such occasion. The bank’s economists presented a very serious projection, claiming eurozone unemployment is to remain in the double-digits even once the recovery cycle completes and demand returns to normal.
Indeed, projections of eurozone GDP growth predict an abysmal average of 1.6% in the period through 2019. And even that, with the optimistic assumption that Ukraine, ISIS, or Grexit- and Brexit-induced financial chaos do not worsen the scenario.
This pairs up with recent worries of secular stagnation, or the idea of a future marked by neglegible growth unable to create jobs and to support the economic redistribution at the basis of a social market economy.
