Another Lost Decade Looms for the Old Continent
Europe’s model is worth defending, and its problems are fixable. But time is running out.
In the summer of 2020, European leaders convened marathon talks over how to rescue a continent battered by the pandemic and a lost decade of economic stagnation. Four days of wrangling between North and South, East and West ensued — “we were like zombies by the end,” one official tells me — but ultimately succeeded. The €750 billion ($814 billion) rescue fund wasn’t just big, but the kind of unprecedented “Hamiltonian leap” toward unity that could only have come about in a crisis.
Four years on, that spirit seems to have gone missing as 450 million voters prepare to take part in European Union parliamentary elections that could see a surge in support for the far right. The economy has dodged recession but has struggled to reach the velocity needed to restore confidence at a time of stretched public finances. The scars of the inflation shock, which has undermined the social contract, are still visible. Geopolitical risks abound, with the US and China exerting economic pressure and war raging in Ukraine.