Twenty Years of “Growth, Jobs And Investments” Strategy in the European Union– Macroeconomic Developments After the Maastricht Treaty

Abstract

<p>Since the creation of the EU, its focal economic objective has been to achieve economic growth and<br />improved employment. The European Union’s present ’Growth, Jobs and Investments’ –strategy (GJI)<br />is a recent attempt to promote these goals. Since the global economic and financial crisis the EU has<br />been suffering from low level of investments. The purpose of this study is to assess the development of<br />growth, employment, and investments in the Member States from 1995 to 2015. For this purpose, a relatively<br />simple ‘GEI-index’ is developed. This aggregate index is a composition of indicators in GJI, which<br />in general evolve in the same direction. The study provides: (1) a comparative evaluation of the haves and<br />losers among the EU countries and (2) an empirical summary for the main objectives in the GJI-strategy.<br />The primary methods used are based on the GEI indicator and data-analyses. The key findings of the<br />study are: First, there seems to be some catching up concerning new member states that joined in the<br />EU in the 2000s. Second, during the whole period from 1995 to the beginning of the financial crisis all the<br />EU-28 countries – including the late members – show a positive development in the GEI-index. However,<br />from 2009 to 2015 seven countries – all of which belong into the euro area –had declining GEI-index.<br />These same countries had low level of investments and long lasting economic recession. Third, all the<br />other EU-28 countries, but except Greece, had positive development in the GEI-index in 2015 as compared<br />to the previous year. Obviously, our GEI-analyses cannot give a straight answer about the success<br />of the EU’s GJI-strategy as such. However, we see that our GEI-index provides a simple but effective<br />tool for the practical assessments of the EU’s growth policies. It is easy to interpret and visualize. Based<br />on our illustration of the GEI-index, we recommend that there is a serious need to re-evaluate the EU’s<br />growth strategies and economic policies concerning the employment and investments.<br /></p>