13 / 150
13
Seven years after the onset of the crisis, 2014 only confirmed the deep
division in the Western world when it came to how to tackle it. The mixed
results in the Union and in the United States are a clear sign that, more
than ever, politics matters. In the Union, the doctrine of the creditor coun-
tries continued to predominate (with increasing difficulty), unbending in
the commitment to cutting public spending as the priority. In the United
States, another viewpoint prevailed: bolstering a recession-stricken econ-
omy by means of fiscal and monetary stimuli for growth. In the clash of
models, the second option clearly came out on top.
The figures we saw in the United States at the end of 2014 are irrefu-
table. The country today enjoys virtually full employment. In Europe, how-
ever, joblessness still stands at around 11%, that is to say, 24 million peo-
ple are out of work.
In the United States, there is growth (almost 4% in the final quarter of
2014). In the Union –particularly in the south–, there is a painfully slow
increase in industrial activity, after seven years of paralysis, with further
internal duality between the centre-north and the south. On top of that,
Europe is mired in deflation.
So unacceptable is the situation that there has been a move towards a
kind of veiled neo-Keynesianism. One example is the Juncker plan: 315
billion euros of anticipated investment and the possibility that certain in-
vestments will not count as deficit (Commission Communication, 13
January 2015). While clearly insufficient, the investment proposal is ac-
knowledgement of the failure of monolithic austerity and of the need to
Introduction. The EU’s main challenge:
growth, jobs and investment to emerge
from the crisis
Diego López Garrido