At the same time, potential growth must be reinforced by adopting appropriate reforms to foster technological progress and strengthen human capital. The very magnitude and diffuse nature of the challenges and changes we face – new technologies, global trade, demography, migration – demand a truly common strategy that goes beyond emergency response.
It is a fallacy that we can direct the course of the economy and finance, patently global phenomena, from within the limited confines of individual European countries, but a common strategy is lacking. As the crisis unfolded in recent years, measures to deal with the emergency were progressively flanked by reform of the governance of the European Union and especially of the euro area.