Since 2007 - broadly the great recession time frame forward - Lithuania has had by far the best GDP per capita growth among Euro members at nearly 40% (nominal,

Since 2007 - broadly the great recession time frame forward - Lithuania has had by far the best GDP per capita growth among Euro members at nearly 40% (nominal, USD terms). Estonia is second, at around 19-20%. Latvia is third at about 11%. Slovakia is up 10%. A distant fifth is Germany at around 7%. Ireland is up a couple percent. Everyone else in the Eurozone is either near flat or negative on growth over the last ~11-12 years. Greece is down 35%, Italy is down 15%, Spain is down 14%, Portugal is down 7%, France is down 7%, Finland and the Netherlands are down about 5%. While the article is criticizing the Euro, Denmark and Sweden have also seen essentially zero per capita growth since 2007. The UK is down 20% over that time. Outside that group and the Euro, you've got Romania up 30%, Poland up around 23%, Czech up 11% and Russia up 18%. I've excluded Norway, just because their figures swing wildly with oil. There's definitely a sustained, serious growth problem in most of the Eurozone, however the baltics are doing quite well. The Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Germany and Austria are starting from quite high per capita figures, it's not a trivial task to keep pushing those higher. The real issue isn't growth generally, it's that the next slide backwards in terms of recession, is going to badly damage the bunch that hasn't held their ground or seen enough recovery yet: France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece. I'm not sure how the Euro survives if those sink lower in a recession and see another lost decade. Which would then actually be a lost two decades - a 1/3 to 1/2 real contraction for all of them, inflation adjusted over time. Losing that much of your purchasing power over 20 years is brutal, people won't sit idly by and absorb that forever, they'll rebel against the institutions. France has pretty considerable exports, equivalent to nearly 20% of their GDP (the US is closer to 11% by comparison). If I'm them, I'd be seriously contemplating that I'd be better off controlling my own currency, so as to undercut the Germany export juggernaut rather than suffer from a currency that is too expensive (while simultaneously being artificially cheap for the German economy, spurring their exports and trade imbalance). Spain, Italy, Portual and Greece are all similarly suffering from a Euro that is too expensive for their situations (to varying degrees) and is harming their export potential.