ARE EUROPES LEADERS REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT PROMOTING GROWTH FRIENDLY REFORMS?

IS GERMANY PRACTISING WHAT IT PREACHES?

In June 2011, the European Commission published detailed “country specific” recommendations for structural reforms by member states to help them boost economic growth.  Similar recommendations were made in 2012, and they were stated to be designed to be implemented “within 12 to 18 months”.

The recommendations covered three areas

1.Fiscal policies,

2.Reforms to reduce imbalances between  exports and imports (macro economic imbalances) and

3.Other growth friendly reforms in labour markets, product markets etc

These recommendations were subsequently examined, and endorsed, by the 27 Heads of Government of the EU

The services of the European Parliament have just released a detailed analysis of how well European leaders and their governments have done in implementing their own recommendations . The analysis does not cover countries that were under Economic Adjustment programmes in the period (ie. Ireland, Portugal and Greece).

The findings show that EU leaders are not taking their own declarations seriously.

Of the 2011 and 2012 recommendations, only 18% have been fully implemented, 39% are being “seriously worked on”, and a very large proportion.... 43% have not been acted upon at all!

The worst performers are Slovenia and Belgium where 64%, and 63%, respectively of the recommendations have been ignored.

The best performer , by this measure ,is Italy, where only 17% of the recommendations addressed to it have not been acted upon. 

In terms of getting the job done completely, the best performer is Denmark which has fully implemented 30% of the recommendations addressed to it, as against an average of 18% for the rest of the EU countries surveyed.

Germany, which regularly preaches structural reform to other countries in the EU, has a bad record in implementing the recommendations addressed to it, and which Chancellor Merkel would have endorsed at the 2011 and 2012 EU Summits.

Nothing has been done so far on 53% of the recommendations addressed to Germany in 2011 and 2012.

For example, the survey by the secretariat of the European Parliament shows that, Germany has failed to do anything on recommendations addressed to it on

1. Ensuring that the Lander implement EU budget rules
2. Improving the cost effectiveness of long term care restructuring the Landesbanken
3. Removing tax wedges that discourage work
4. Removing entry barriers to professions and crafts (surprising given Germany’s looming labour shortage)
5. Stimulating competition in the service sector
6. Promoting cross border energy supply networks( a vital issue now that Russian supplies are so unreliable)

These failures must prompt fairly profound questions.

Are the Commission recommendations the right ones, and if not, why did the Heads of Government endorse them?

If the Heads of Government believe these are the right recommendations, why are they failing so miserably to get their own Ministers (who they can hire and fire) to implement them?

Given that economic growth is so important, and that Europe’s best brains have  been applied to producing these recommendations, huge gaps like this, between what its leaders do, and what they say, brings them, and EU itself, into disrepute.