04/12/2005 1:26:46 pm
German and French Capitalism. Last week, I attended a dinner with former EU Commissioner Mario Monti as the guest of honour. He gave an interesting speech with some new angles to the current debate. One point was a reminder that when Britain discussed whether to enter the EEC, several people in Britain feared that they would lose their "social model" with a big state. They feared that they would have to adapt to a much more capitalist Germany. In 1973, Britain became a member and was the poorest one. Now, Britain is one of the wealthiest EU members and France and Germany fear the "neoliberal" anglo-saxon model. What happened during this time are the Thatcher reforms which created a more capitalist Britain - and a more wealthy country. And of course several steps in Continental Europe away from their more capitalist origin to the model that was Britian′s for a couple of decades before Thatcher. Now, they are failing - as Britain was. We should learn from history. And many European countries simply have to learn from their previous successful societies.