Is Europe Awakening at Last to Its Economic Peril?

Milder-than-expected regulations, pro-business thinking. Something may be happening in the EU.

By Joseph C. Sternberg. Excerpts:

"on Nov. 13 [the EU] passed a tranche of climate regulations"

"lawmakers greatly reduced the number of European companies that would face onerous new reporting requirements by increasing the company-size thresholds at which the rules kick in."

"the European Commission (the European Union’s bureaucratic arm) proposed a weakening of Europe’s digital regulations. The goal is to make the Continent safe-ish for artificial intelligence—and for American tech companies."

"more permissive approach to regulating new AI technology."

"Ms. von der Leyen and other leaders are starting to demonstrate a capacity for self-reflection and reform"

"The steady productivity convergence with the U.S. that marked the decades after 1945 stopped around 1990 when European output per capita was 80% of America’s. Since then Europe has been drifting backward in relative terms, with per-capita output these days around 70% of the U.S."

"Taxes across the Continent are far too high to be consistent with investment and job creation."

"an impassioned plea for a looser regulatory approach to new technologies, less hostility to successful companies and financial reforms to let Europe funnel more capital toward its own entrepreneurs."

"Mr. Draghi’s warning that if Europe does not deregulate, it will not prosper."

"last year’s Continent-wide election for that body [European Parliament]. The result was a majority for parties of the political right" 

"Europeans will have to abandon the safetyism that created their regulatory morass and the magical thinking that spawned their net-zero climate policies."