Speaking at an economic conference, the Oxford graduate and founder of the European Centre for International Political Economy, who was voted one of the most influential economists in Europe, announced that “the era of an ever-closer union has ended”.
The economist, an advisor to the British government, said hoping the election of Emmanuel Macron in France and re-election of Mark Rutte in The Netherlands would strenghten the EU, was misguided. Erixon said: “Despite the victories of the Dutch Prime Minister and Emmanuel Macron, as much as I like to share their positive view about European cooperation and empowering the EU with more authority, I think the era of an ever-closer union has ended.
Both Jean-Claude Juncker and Merkel have lauded the French and Dutch elections as electorial support for the European project.
“The notion of the ever-closer union has been very, very strong for more than 60 years, but it has died,” Erixon added. “It didn’t end with Brexit nor did it end with Trump’s scepticism about the EU. It ended far earlier than that – 15 years ago when France and the Netherlands voted against the constitutional treaty.
“This was an early warning about declining support for anything that suggested a deeper integration.”
According to Erixon the economic growth was poor in the EU and getting worse, as the “economic growth premium of European integration” has weakened.
“This was a core selling point for a long time. It was a promise there if you join the EU, you’re going to be better off, your economy will become better with deeper integration. Economic growth is not just poor at an EU level, but across individual level too, across all countries.
“In 1990s, at least some countries were growing at a high level – but now it is poor everywhere.” The Swedish economist warned that the EU will not be able to resolve “major problems of our time”, citing migration and unemployment.
“The EU has moved into a political culture that is purely transactional. We will see much less of the visionary generosity that guided the EU in the past, in the expansion of the EU to Eastern countries. The ambitious political culture of the European project has died.”
This is a major defection from the EU camp, as Erixon was educated at the University of Oxford as well as the globalist London School of Economics. He started his career as an economist in the Prime Minister’s Office in Sweden and later worked as an economist at the World Bank and for JP Morgan.