Eduardo Porter tries to get to the heart of the Brexit controversy, but there is no center: it’s all edges. But some things an economist can point at: the euro crisis and poor growth.
Eduardo Porter, After Brexit Vote, a Choice for Europe: Move Forward, or Fall Back
What could the E.U. have done better? Things would be a lot easier if most of Europe were growing at more than a snail’s pace. The inability of countries in the euro area — which does not include Britain — to stop the slow-motion implosion of Greece and other deeply indebted countries gives integration a bad name. The two are related.
Germany’s resistance to share in the costs of a collective solution to seriously write down the debts that Greece and other Southern European nations will never be able to pay off — insisting instead that the indebted countries and their beleaguered citizens bear nearly all the cost — has prolonged and deepened Europe’s stagnation.
“Britons contemplate the crisis of the euro as a little bit of proof that they were right not to join,” said Giancarlo Corsetti, a professor of macroeconomics at the University of Cambridge.
What might we see if the dream of greater integration is sidelined?
The free movement of people inside the E.U. might be the first to go into reverse. “Restricting the free movement of labor is not a taboo,” Mr. Kirkegaard told me. “Another way freedom of movement will be restricted is you will see more and more restrictions placed on the ability of citizens from other E.U. countries to claim welfare benefits.”
Maybe the European Union’s future is more “à la carte” — a set of coalitions of the willing, as it were. Rather than insisting on all or nothing, said Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, it might be better to consider “a Europe that is not one size fits all, where the balance between national governments and Brussels is more flexible.”
from Stowe Boyd http://www.stoweboyd.com/post/146305544002
