Laszlo Andor, former EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.Demotix/Pedro Benavente.All rights reserved.Over the last five years leaders in Brussels have focused their attention on the fiscal deficits of member countries that increased dramatically after 2008. It is no exaggeration to say that the central focus of policy and most EU summits has been supporting the euro through what austerity advocates euphemistically call "fiscal consolidation". Misdiagnosed and incorrectly measured, fiscal imbalances have simultaneously diverted attention from and highlighted far more important deficits in the European Union, of governance and social protection.
The manifestation of these twin deficits include 1) the continued stagnation of the euro zone economies; 2) the ongoing conflict between the Syriza government and the EU; 3) xenophobic fears of migrants; and 4) the appalling level of unemployment in several of the euro zone countries.
A few days ago yet again came news that the euro zone perhaps had finally begun a sustained recovery, though scepticism outweighed enthusiasm in most reports. What passed for recovery was an annualized growth rate of 1.4% for the first quarter of 2015 (quarter-on-quarter rate of 0.4%). Prior to the crash of 2008 a growth rate below 1.5 would have been identified for what it is, near stagnation, below what in a more enlightened time we called the "natural" rate of growth of an economy (productivity change plus the rate of population increase, usually estimated at 2.5-3% for advanced market economies).
