Ganesh has a nice piece in the FT this weekend... but honestly, not even his heart is in it:
The case is funny, and even interesting: Europe used to be rich, productive north vs poor, agricultural and sluggish south. That's now flipping, and the future of this continent will be made in Madrid and Rome:
A revenge of sorts is being had. Spain was the world’s best-performing rich nation in 2024, judged The Economist. Greece was borrowing as cheaply as France towards the end of the same year. Foreign delegations now trouble the political class in Athens for clues about how to do painful, fruitful reform. Portugal has been growing faster than Germany since before the pandemic.
...or not: Directions matter in economics, and while it's true that the northern countries are fucking themselves pretty badly as of late, the levels-comparisons are still unimpressive. However you slice it, Spain or Greece etc are still some 30-40% behind the Dutch, Scandis, or Germans. (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=GDP_per_capita,_consumption_per_capita_and_price_level_indices).
Looking with envy to (economic) life south of the Alps is a bad idea, largely speaking.
This next point seems insane, and particularly insider/elitist/Europe-is-fine navel-gazing:
It is the northern EU, through historical accident, that looks less and less like the coming world. There is no French- or Dutch- or German-speaking superpower on the horizon, unless Madagascar gets a move on. With the rise of Spanish (which has toppled French as the most-studied language at A-level in Britain, never mind globally), my sense of where in Europe feels parochial, and where seems a bridge to elsewhere, has changed over the course of my adult life.
Look dudes, Europe is a museum rapidly turning into an elderly home; the best you have is to get the fuck out of here. (But I'm still here...for now... so make of that what you will...hashtag hypocrisy: 1)
Pretty rah-rah finish, but ugh, ridic:
And while the economic gains since 2010 can be overdone, the strategic trends that are empowering the Med can pass without notice. The future of the continent will be decided to a large extent south of the 45th parallel, as was its deep past. Who are you calling peripheral?
At least the abbreviation "the Med" is cool. Will steal.
non-paywalled here: https://archive.md/lDN9a
Footnotes
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"Foot Voting Reconsidered: How Should I Think About Leaving?" _The Daily Economy, June 21, 2024: https://aier.org/article/foot-voting-reconsidered-how-should-i-think-about-leaving/ ↩