Restoring European Growth

Since the eurozone debt crisis crisis erupted in Greece almost two years ago, EU leaders have failed to propose a solution that balances austerity and economic growth, without which confidence in the euro cannot be restored. Perhaps European policymakers should look to Argentina for the answer.

NEW YORK – Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis has rumbled on for so long that some people are beginning to take it for granted that eurozone leaders can continue to stumble from one non-solution to the next without risk of cataclysm. But if any troubled southern European economy fails to roll over its debt in the coming months, the resulting contagion will spread quickly from the eurozone throughout the global financial system, with consequences far more grave than what followed Lehman Brothers’ collapse in September 2008.

Despite the new agreement reached at the European Union’s summit in December, strengthening financial markets’ confidence in the eurozone remains an elusive goal. In the aftermath of the summit, the euro’s exchange rate sank to its lowest level of the year (around $1.30), while yields on Italian five-year bonds hit a new high (almost 6.5%). In France, Socialist presidential candidate François Hollande flatly declared that the latest agreement “is not the right answer,” because “without economic growth we will achieve none of the targets on deficit reduction.”

Hollande was right. Since the crisis erupted in Greece almost two years ago, EU leaders have failed to propose a solution that balances austerity with economic growth. Whenever the markets signal skepticism about the euro’s viability, European leaders rush to restore confidence through austerity measures, while ignoring the underlying need to reestablish the conditions for growth. The urgent crowds out the merely important. But, without growth, the EU’s long-term prospects are grim.

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