2/3  A recent U.S. study found that the welfare gains from consumers having a broader choice of goods are equivalent to 2.8 percent of GDP.3 China has a huge cost advantage in producing labour-intensive goods. Consequently, Europe’s economic structure will change: as Chinese wages are much lower than European wages, production of labour-intensive goods is shifted to China.
In the macroeconomic field, a system of monitoring imbalances having potentially significant implications for the euro area’s financial stability was envisaged, with quantitative indicators and critical thresholds based on which the European Council may issue recommendations to the country concerned and, in the most serious cases, apply financial sanctions.