One thing is common among those who push for all-out fiscal consolidation and those who insist that the total priority must be economic stimulus: both agree that investment in Europe is lagging too much.
The EU fund for Strategic Investment by the Juncker Commission is being proposed to compensate for this deficiency.
It has been criticised as being too little, too late.
Also, the really new investment monies being mobilised by the initiative are minimal, in relative and absolute terms. Most have been subtracted from monies voted by the EU for research, which is highly regrettable.
I sympathize with people who argue that better this than nothing.
However fundamentally, the malaise of the eurozone results from deep inbalances between its constituent parts.
They have created a dynamic by which internal economic divergences continue to widen.
Perhaps the only way by which to counter the inbalances is through a central investment fund, massive in scope and targeted to rebalance wealth and employment creation within the euro zone.
The Juncker fund has no chance of achieving this target.
Nor does it have that ambition.
For that reason I fear that it will make hardly any dent on economic stagnation in Europe.
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