There is a figure that, to my mind, captures Europe’s problem perfectly, and no, it is not about immigration, but rather something much more deep-rooted that is causing us to destroy ourselves. So let me try to explain the traits that have slowly but inexorably set us adrift over these years. Europe accounts for roughly 12% of the world’s population. It produces about 25% of global GDP but accounts for 60% of the world’s welfare spending.
When a nation, or a group of nations as in this case, reaches a point like this, it simply means it has fallen asleep. That is to say: it has stopped remembering the bad times, ignores the fact that we live in an extremely competitive world, to the point of completely forgetting that energy, productivity or industry actually matter.
Take Germany: for years it scaled back nuclear power while increasing its dependence on Russian gas, then the war in Ukraine comes along and suddenly you discover that your foreign policy is also shaped by whom you buy the energy that keeps your factories running from.
But exactly the same thing has happened in the United Kingdom: if you push industrial electricity costs to extremely high levels, you cannot be surprised if producing steel, chemicals, glass or components becomes cheaper elsewhere. And when those companies leave, you do not just lose jobs, you do not merely lose profits you can tax to generate revenue, but you lose something even more important: you lose expertise and autonomy in the supply chain. Because importing a pair of shoes is one thing — objectively, that causes no problems — but becoming dependent on foreign suppliers, dependent on other nations, for everything that matters is quite another. And that, to my mind, is precisely the mistake Europe has made in recent decades. We have thought as though economic security were permanent, as though we could move production abroad, make energy more expensive and still maintain the same level of prosperity. But the world has changed in the meantime, and for years we thought these choices had no consequences, yet now the bill is coming due. And what do we do? Shift the blame onto others. As usual. There is the immigrant, let’s blame the immigrant. Politics, let’s blame politics. Taxes, there are taxes, what a disaster. In short, there is always a good reason not to change things.
The problem starts with those who govern us, then automatically trickles straight down to us. We are becoming a lazy population, with little initiative and, above all, badly governed.