[gghhzzgghhzz]

as a standards body, yes some of the output is high. I think it serves a useful function.

on the macro level though I can't see it myself.

EU area had everything going for it in terms of being able to make drastic progressive shifts forward in multiple areas. but instead since 2008 its been doing little but dealing with the contradictions of its own self-imposed constraints. be that debt crisis, energy policy, fortress border policy, emigration issues, Brexit and endless political dramas over reactionary political movements. It's now fixated with re-armament, something that threatens to produce yet another lost decade.

Meanwhile, China and other parts of Asia have taken these same 20 years to create entire new sectors and lead the world in them.

[rich_sasha]

Yeah, Europe needs to find its mojo again, that's for sure. But I wouldn't blame the EU for that. There was a general preference for consumption vs investment, if anything the EU was driving investment more than member states.

The rearmament might actually inject a good chunk of investment - let's see.

[gghhzzgghhzz]

The EU itself imposed a limit of deficit spending to 3% GDP

The Eurozone included economies as diverse as Greece, Spain, Lithuania and Germany

These are some of the self-contradictions I'm referring to.

And the basic issue is that you cannot have a single monetary policy and impose half a fiscal policy, without political unification. And IMO that will never be squared.

I suppose the new glaring contradiction is that environmental policy and net zero policy has primacy (rightly in my view), but now so does making bombs.