Skip to content
Back to News

As Europe’s economic picture brightens, new threats emerge

December 1, 2017

As Europe’s economic picture brightens, new threats emerge

December 1, 2017
Arthur Goldhammer in Harvard Gazette

A slow but robust economic recovery is well underway in Europe, but the European Union now faces serious new threats from both within and without, foreign policy experts warned at the daylong 2017 Summit on the Future of Europe at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies in early November.


Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies think tank, said that sustained growth in domestic demand is a crucial element to economic recovery, and in Europe that has been increasing at a rate of about 2 percent a year since 2012. In addition, he said, while unemployment in much of Europe remains high, the labor force participation rate (the percentage of the working-age population either employed or actively looking for work) has grown steadily for many years — in contrast with the situation in the U.S., where the participation rate, initially higher than that of Europe, has fallen since the economic crisis began and shows no sign of bouncing back. The absence of a “discouraged worker” effect in Europe signals that a robust recovery is likely, Gros said.

About the Author

Arthur Goldhammer

Arthur Goldhammer

Local Affiliate & Seminar Co-chair

Art Goldhammer has a B.S. and Ph.D. in Mathematics from MIT and has taught at Brandeis University and Boston University. He has translated more than 125 books from French, for which he ...
Close