From 1960 up until the late 1970s average real output per capita growth was higher in the countries that now make up the euro area; in the 1980s it was roughly the same, but by the mid-1990s it was lower.
Actually, euro area GDP per capita growth was approximately 5% during the 1960s and 1970s, around 2% from 1980 to the mid 1990s and has been 1.7% on average since the mid 1990s.