What is a “job-rich recovery”? What is a “recovery”, in the first place?

According to Wikipedia, an economic recovery is “the phase of the business cycle following a recession, during which an economy regains and exceeds peak employment and output levels achieved prior to downturn. A recovery period is typically characterized by abnormally high levels of growth in real gross domestic product, employment, corporate profits, and other indicators”.

To have a recovery, we need to have “abnormal levels of growth”. For the time being, this is far from being the European reality. The sovereign debt crisis is not yet over, as countries such as Spain and Italy are struggling to place their bonds on the market, Greece is alive just because of international aids and Portugal is also in a state. Decision-making is too slow - there is a need to reach agreements between many voices in the room and no consolidated procedure to do so - in times when fast reactions are necessary.

France runs elections where the top two candidates publicly claim they are going to increase inefficient and unproductive public spending. While one of them would like to re-negotiate a free circulation agreement, the other looks at modifying the long negotiated fiscal compact and admits he is not going to ratify it as it is.

With elections on sight in the Netherlands (the government has collapsed this weekend), there is no hope for a stable and consistent negotiating base for future agreements at EU level: this is terrible, as steps towards European integration will be necessary in order to overcome the current crisis.

While Member States, who should be acting, fail to find common positions and to agree over measures to overturn the situation, the European Commission releases another “paper”. No doubt it contains interesting proposals and perspectives, but its very title seems wrong and outdated: certainly, without an “abnormal” economic growth there will be no chute of unemployment, no matter what the European Commission says. And “growth” cannot be created by the limited tools the European Commission has.

It is true that the Commission can prepare a good legislative framework to “facilitate” growth: but its powers go just as far. Other than that, it is just moral suasion.

Commission officials are paid to do their jobs, and they are very good at this: what is lacking isn’t technical knowledge of the subjects, but a political guidance, a European vision that commits Member States to act or forces them to give Europe more responsibility in finding solution.

In the current state of things, a powerless Commission can only give birth to dead children, no matter how beautiful they are. It is in the dark rooms of the European Council that healthy babies can be conceived: even if they are not as good looking. 

PictureSource:http://www.flickr.com/photos/europeancouncil_meetings/5865404275/sizes/l/in/photostream/