In the last RECON Newsletter several writers took the opportunity to point out that European performance in the two years of the financial crisis since the collapse of the Lehman Brothers was far from perfect – quite right. It was also deficient in the period before that. But they went on to draw the conclusion that closer integration and better democratic arrangements at the EU level were the answer. There is a non-sequitur here. The US has much better democratic arrangements and institutions at the federal level yet it was not only a major cause of the crisis but has thus far had a rather less successful response to the crisis, as it is difficult to get agreement on fundamental changes.
November 2010