For the Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz, Europe has been slow to implement a recovery plan – franceinfo

He warns against a return to austerity policy. The Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz judges in an interview with AFP, Sunday, September 5, that the European Union should have adopted a device comparable to its mega-stimulus plan from the debt crisis in 2010.

Faced with the horrors of the Covid-19 pandemic, “Europe came together and created the € 750 billion Stimulus Fund, which is the sort of thing that should have been done during the euro crisis in 2010”, he declared on the sidelines of The European House-Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio (Italy).

During this mini-Davos, organized on the shores of Lake Como, Bruno Le Maire recognized that it was for Europeans to “change what they did during the euro crisis”, highlighted Joseph Stiglitz, great figure in the criticism of austerity. “We were slow to act in 2008”, said the French Minister of the Economy on Saturday.

Faced with the urgency of the health crisis, “The EU provided the money without the austerity conditions it imposed in 2010 and disbursed the first installment” this summer, but doubts remain on the continuation of the payments, estimates the American economist.

“If they fall back into the old method and again become excessively strict on the conditions and do not pay the second installment” because the objectives set will not have been achieved, “some of the old problems may resurface”, he warns.