Over the past 25 years, the European Union (EU) has accumulated a significant economic performance gap with the rest of the world, and particularly the United States (US). One of the most striking aspects of this disparity, as this scoreboard shows, is the persistent difference in growth, productivity, and investment levels. This economic stall is explained by two main factors. Firstly, the policy choices made by many European Member states aimed at increasing demand and encouraged by persistently low or even negative real interest rates have contributed to fostering the financialization of the economy to the detriment of productive investment. Secondly, underlying structural problems, namely demographic slowdown and energy dependence, have only helped exacerbate the negative consequences of poor economic choices. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008, the subsequent Sovereign Debt Crisis in Europe, the more recent Covid-19 pandemic, and the Russian war in Ukraine have all exposed and amplified these underlying issues. After periods of turbulence and a return to greater coherence, the Monetary Union is once again at a critical juncture. The euro’s successes cannot mask its weaknesses. […]