Even casual observers will have noticed there is something rotten in the economic state of core Europe: the current cyclical recovery is exceptionally weak; underlying productivity performance is disappointing; and divergences among the eurozone economies are growing worryingly large. Yet French politicians disagree only on whether a oui or a non to the European constitution would better protect their citizens from "ultra-liberalism" and Franz Müntefering, chairman of Germany's ruling SPD, describes investors who desire a high return as "locusts". In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, substitutes rhetoric for action. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.

Klaus Regeling of the European Commission's directorate for economic and financial affairs notes that in previous eurozone recoveries the average rate of quarter-on-quarter economic growth was 0.7 per cent over the first year and a half. This time it has been only 0.4 per cent.*