These reforms eventually boosted France towards the top of the productivity per hour league in Europe, growth rates greater that Germany?s and a comfortably leisured lifestyle for those with jobs.

The vision was one of sacrifice domestically, including price deregulation, denationalisation with attendant job-losses, and a strong currency, inseparable from greater integration on the European level. It was very costly politically for the socialist government he was part of, but it worked.

So when Delors said that the launch of the Euro was flawed because the necessary harmonisation of policies was not in place, perhaps what he meant was that the informed political commitment to reform, and the willingness to pay the political price, was absent ? in France and Germany as well as in Italy and elsewhere. If you truly desire the end, you desire the means, and you assume your responsibility.

My guess is that the European elite will have to wait for Merkel, Sarkozy and who knows who in Italy before they once again regain their coj ? sorry, start thinking of themselves as serving Europe and the nation by giving it what it needs but doesn?t want. The scale of Jospin?s defeat still scares even the right.

There?s a very interesting analysis of all this here.

http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/conferences/tiberghien/papers_pdf/TiberghienChapter4-France.pdf

These reforms eventually boosted France towards the top of the productivity per hour league in Europe, growth rates greater that Germany?s and a comfortably leisured lifestyle for those with jobs.

The vision was one of sacrifice domestically, including price deregulation, denationalisation with attendant job-losses, and a strong currency, inseparable from greater integration on the European level. It was very costly politically for the socialist government he was part of, but it worked.

So when Delors said that the launch of the Euro was flawed because the necessary harmonisation of policies was not in place, perhaps what he meant was that the informed political commitment to reform, and the willingness to pay the political price, was absent ? in France and Germany as well as in Italy and elsewhere. If you truly desire the end, you desire the means, and you assume your responsibility.

My guess is that the European elite will have to wait for Merkel, Sarkozy and who knows who in Italy before they once again regain their coj ? sorry, start thinking of themselves as serving Europe and the nation by giving it what it needs but doesn?t want. The scale of Jospin?s defeat still scares even the right.

There?s a very interesting analysis of all this here.

http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/conferences/tiberghien/papers_pdf/TiberghienChapter4-France.pdf

Quite so.

It is the rules that underpin the single currency on deficit limits that are perhaps the biggest driver of structural reform in the Eurozone. Clearly governments that are politically unable, or ideologically unwilling, to carry out necessary reform will ultimately undermine the single currency, and create exactly the kind of economic disharmomy and tension that now exists. This fact has been evident for a number of years now but in the rush of enthusiasm to introduce the single currency it was ignored, shouted down, papered over, and in some instances dismissed as lie; but the truth always comes out eventually!

The liberal economic model, loathed by many in France and Germany, is in many respects an inevitable consequence of membership of the ?uro.