The ECB’s balance sheet is now double the size of the Fed’s as a percentage of GDP:  Page 8 sur 14 Moreover, thanks to our social model and its higher automatic stabilizers, the overall 2020 fiscal stimulus in the euro area has been almost as strong as in the United States:  Yes, President Biden’s American Rescue Plan is significantly bigger for 20212022. But according to many American economists, it could create a risk of the economy running above potential, “making monetary policy more difficult to use in the futureiv”, as expressed by Olivier Blanchard – who is not really known as a supporter of austerity. The new infrastructure bill, to be announced today, could have more positive long-lasting effects in two regards: it strengthens supply, including possibly in education; it could reverse the race to ever more tax cuts in advanced economies. With that in mind, for us Europeans, our main issue now is not the scale of our fiscal response but the speed of its execution. Speed, once more, is our collective handicap. Governments now need to implement the recovery plan to which they have agreed and they need to do so urgently. In other words, we in Europe need to walk our talk. On a structural level, three major crises in the past ten years – 2008-2009, 2011, 2020 – have shown the need to complete the Economic Union in addition to the successful Monetary Union, starting with a permanent fiscal capacity.
Page 15 sur 14 i  Delors J., Speech on the occasion of the opening of the academic year at the College of Europe, “50 ans Collège d’Europe”, September 1999 ii European Commission, Eurobarometer 93, October 2020 iii De Tocqueville A., Democracy in America, 1840 iv Blanchard O., “In defense of concerns over the $ trillion relief plan”, Peterson Institute for International Economics, February 2021 v Gordon R. J., “Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds”, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2012 vi PatentSight vii Hanushek E. A. and Woessmann L., “The Economics of International Differences in Educational Achievement”, Handbooks in Economics, Vol. 3, 2011 viii Spain and Italy have the lowest PIAAC scores (respectively 252 and 250) in terms of adult literacy with France third but slightly above (262) vs. Netherlands (284), Norway (278) and Sweden (279). France has a 22% share of low-skilled workers, Spain and Italy around 27%, Sweden and Norway around 13%. Share of high-skilled workers: France 8 %, Spain 5 %, Italy 3 %, Sweden 16 %, Norway 14 %. Based on PIAAC 2012 and OECD 2013. ix The share of high-skilled adults among the population in the Netherlands, or in Finland, is more than twice as large as in France (17% and 19% respectively vs. 8% in France).