Bootle: The Trouble with Europe

The Trouble with Europe

Europe stands at a crossroads. The euro crisis continues. Europe's elites are still pushing for full political integration, but support for the EU is dwindling even in its heartlands like the Netherlands, and governments fear a swing to the extreme right in the May European elections.

Now Capital Economics founder Roger Bootle turns his attention to the EU. The EU has a profound identity crisis, Bootle says. No one is clear what the EU is for, or how ‘ever closer union’ can be matched with expanding geographical horizons and huge disparities of income and culture. The EU has ineffective and often undemocratic institutions. It has not delivered the prosperity it promised: from 1999 to 2012, growth in the eurozone was a feeble 1.5 %. We can, and should, attempt to reform the EU. But there are serious political barriers. Here, in an extract from his new book, The Trou...