| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
IT'S TOO SOON to pop the champagne corks. Europe, mired in gloom for years, still faces many high hurdles to resolve its crisis. Nonetheless, there are some auguries of prosperity that might invite a stockpiling of party hats and noisemakers. In December 2013, Ireland successfully emerged from its bailout, and Portugal followed this May. This verifiable progress represented a first for members of Europe's struggling periphery. But this news should only lift spirits so high. If these financial gains make anything clear, it is the need now to go beyond budget control to more fundamental and structural economic reform. Ireland's finance minister, Michael Noonan, summed up the situation well, characterizing his nation's emergence from the bailout as a "milestone," not the "end of the road." To secure their economic and financial future, Ireland, Portugal, the rest of Europe's periphery and France (which increasingly resembles the periphery) will have to reform long-standing labor, product and tax practices, and even industrial structures, to promote rather than impede organic growth. These nations must do nothing less than reshape the political-economic models under which they have operated for decades.
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