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Europe's debt crisis: 5 ways it's been put to good use

Europe’s debt crisis has roiled financial markets and populations. But beyond nationwide strikes and gyrating markets, Europe has put its crisis to good use. Here Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a research fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics points out five trends that will ultimately strengthen the European Union and the euro currency.

3. Thatcherism on the Mediterranean

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Greece may not be able to repay its enormous current debts – leaving debt holders to take their lumps – but it is undertaking reforms that decisively break with its past as perhaps the most mismanaged economy in Europe.

Standard market-oriented structural reforms are now being unleashed across the weak periphery of the euro. Previously politically toxic increases in the retirement age are now happening in Greece, Portugal, Spain, and France; labor markets are being liberalized; closed-shop industries are opening up to competition; and state-owned assets are up for privatization.

Tough structural reforms rarely deliver improved economic performance in the short term. But already the euro area’s aggregate government deficit is less than half that of the US federal government, a significant improvement from when the European crisis started. When combined with the aggressive austerity measures adopted in Europe since the beginning of the crisis, these structural reforms will raise growth rates over time.

Today’s crisis will thus provide crucial impetus for addressing Europe’s long-term demographic and economic challenges.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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