Aggregate statistics like EU wide GDP per capita comparisons are useful for broad trends but risk obscuring the reality on the ground. Europe is not a single economic organism in the same sense that the United States is. It is a collection of sovereign states with their own fiscal policies social security systems and productivity profiles.
The migration factor is worth considering but it is only part of the equation. Large influxes of low income migrants can indeed affect per capita figures but the slower productivity growth in many European economies predates recent migration waves. Structural issues such as heavily regulated labor markets slower adoption of new technologies lower rates of capital investment and in some cases shrinking working age populations have been long term drag factors.
Aggregate statistics like EU wide GDP per capita comparisons are useful for broad trends but risk obscuring the reality on the ground. Europe is not a single economic organism in the same sense that the United States is. It is a collection of sovereign states with their own fiscal policies social security systems and productivity profiles.
The migration factor is worth considering but it is only part of the equation. Large influxes of low income migrants can indeed affect per capita figures but the slower productivity growth in many European economies predates recent migration waves. Structural issues such as heavily regulated labor markets slower adoption of new technologies lower rates of capital investment and in some cases shrinking working age populations have been long term drag factors.