1. The Europe We Would Like to Inherit: Toward a Visionary New Pragmatism
- Author:
- Dustin Dehez, Muddassar Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Spela Kranjc, and Ivo Sobral
- Publication Date:
- 07-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- Europe urgently needs to move forward on a number of crucial reforms simultaneously. To face the challenges of the recession, we need better economic integration. The crisis of the Euro zone is not only a debt crisis. What Europe is facing is a multitude of different crises, of which the debt crises in Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and Italy are only a small part. All European countries have accumulated huge debts, their social security models are facing an inevitable demographic challenge of enormous proportions. The conventional crisis management response—austerity—has failed to create a foundation for future economic stability. To survive, Europe needs to rethink the very foundations of its economic policies for a population that is older and a Europe more fractured. Europe needs to open itself up to immigration, foster regulation and integration of financial markets, overhaul social security structures set up decades ago, galvanize productive investment in new post-carbon industries that will create jobs and spur technological innovation, and invest in a security sector that is capable of projecting stability.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Development, Economics, Politics, and Reform
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Greece, Spain, Italy, and Cyprus