EU Competitiveness

The Financial Times has a story on European competitiveness:

Europe's apparently doomed attempt to overtake the US as the world's leading economy by 2010 will today be laid bare in a strongly worded critique by the European Commission.

The Commission's spring report, the focal point of the March European Union economic summit, sets out in stark terms the reasons for the widening economic gap between Europe and the US.

It cites Europe's low investment, low productivity, weak public finances and low employment rates as among the many reasons for its sluggish performance.

The draft report, to be published by the Commission today, warns that without substantial improvements "the Union cannot catch up on the United States, as our per capita GDP is 72 per cent of our American partner's".

While economic growth is not the be-all-end-all, as The Wife is wont to say, it's interesting that they are missing their own goals. It seems they have a choice to make: abandon attempts to be the largest economy in the world, or remove some of the regulatory shackles that hinder investment, entrepreneurship, and productivity growth.