In Lisbon the European Council proclaimed a European growth strategy. It considers an average economic u0093growth rate of around 3 percent as a realistic prospect for the coming yearsu0094 and assigns public finances an important role in the process of achieving this goal. This paper addresses...

On 12 June and 9 September 2008 the EESC Labour Market Observatory organised two hearings on "Sustainable Productivity Growth and Quality of Working Life".

Since 1995 Germany has barely managed to grow by 1.2% annually, with growth over the last four years averaging only 0.6%. In 2005, growth will again be below1%. With these low growth rates Germany has clearly fallen behind all the other European countries. The German economy is suffering from a...

While there has been some recovery since the depths of the Great Recession in 2009, both output and employment levels remain lower than they were pre-crisis in the EU-27. Indeed, the severity of the recession has been such that output has yet to return to 2007 levels in each of the largest...

This paper presents evidence for structural differences in economic growth dynamics between the current EU and the central- and eastern European accession countries. Two important results emerge from the analysis. First, accession countries have posted higher average growth and wider output...