Eurosclerosis (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

: ''Eurosklerose'') is a term coined by German economist Herbert Giersch in the 1970s, to describe a pattern of economic stagnation in Europe that may have resulted from government over-regulation and overly generous social benefits policies. The term alludes to the medical term sclerosis, and is a rhyme of the archaic term ''neurosclerosis''. The term was used to describe European countries of the 1970s and 1980s which had high

unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is the proportion of people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work du ...

and slow job creation in spite of overall

economic growth In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...

, in contrast to what the United States experienced in the same period when

economic expansion An economic expansion is an upturn in the level of economic activity and of the goods and services available. It is a finite period of growth, often measured by a rise in real GDP, that marks a reversal from a previous period, for example, whi ...

was accompanied by high job growth. In its political context, the term "eurosclerosis" was used to describe a period with a perceived stagnation of

European integration European integration is the process of political, legal, social, regional and economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe, or nearby. European integration has primarily but not exclusively come about through the European Union ...

. The slow pace of enlargement, a perceived lack of democracy and economic problems meant that negative and apathetic attitudes to the

European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organisation created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...

(EEC) were high.

Wilfried Martens Wilfried Achiel Emma Martens (; 19 April 1936 – 9 October 2013) was a Belgian politician who served as prime minister of Belgium from 1979 to 1981 and from 1981 to 1992. A member of the Flemish Christian Democratic and Flemish, Christian People ...

Prime Minister of Belgium The prime minister of Belgium (; ; ) or the premier of Belgium is the head of the federal government of Belgium, and the most powerful person in Belgian politics. The first head of government in Belgian history was Henri van der Noot in 179 ...

from 1981 to 1992, states in his 2008 memoirs that the period of "eurosclerosis" was brought to an end by the 1986

Single European Act The Single European Act (SEA) was the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. The Act set the European Community an objective of establishing a single market by 31 December 1992, and a forerunner of the European Union's Common Fore ...

which re-launched the drive to integration by framing the

single market A single market, sometimes called common market or internal market, is a type of trade bloc in which most trade barriers have been removed (for goods) with some common policies on product regulation, and freedom of movement of the factors of pr ...

of the EEC. As an economic term, "eurosclerosis" has later been used more broadly to refer to overall

economic stagnation Economic stagnation is a prolonged period of slow economic growth (traditionally measured in terms of the GDP growth), usually accompanied by high unemployment. Under some definitions, ''slow'' means significantly slower than potential growth as ...

. According to

Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American New Keynesian economics, New Keynesian economist who is the Distinguished Professor of Economics at the CUNY Graduate Center, Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He ...

and the US

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...

, at least one alleged victim of Eurosclerosis (France) has gone from having a lower employment than the US in 1999, to a significantly higher employment rate following the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of market decline in economies around the world that occurred from late 2007 to mid-2009.

References

* Rosser, Barkley J. and Marina V. Rosser. "Comparative Economics in a Transforming World Economy", 2nd Edition, The MIT Press, 2004. pp 240 * Henderson, David R
The Europeanization of the U.S. labor market.
''Public Policy''. Fall, 1993. History of the European Union Economic growth Unemployment Welfare state {{EU-stub

See also

References