Opinion & Analysis

Measuring Europe’s investment problem – a long-term view of investment growth in Europe by Grégory Claeys, Pia Hüttl, André Sapir and Guntram B. Wolff

The President of the European Commission is worried about the investment situation in Europe and has taken the initiative to propose a €300 billion investment plan to the December European Council meeting. Under the leadership of Vice President Katainen, the Commission has designed a plan which will be announced this week. The announcement of the investment plan is scheduled to coincide with the announcement by the Commission of its assessment of national budgetary plans for 2015. The hope is that the investment package will be significant enough to boost growth and make it possible for EU countries to comply with EU fiscal rules in the years to come. As we argued some time ago “without growth, it will become impossible to respect the spirit of the fiscal rules”.

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