Posted on 09/04/2005 4:28:13 PM PDT by Mount Athos
Europe risks becoming a "second- or third-world region" within a generation because strict labour laws are preventing companies from restructuring properly, according to the author of a Government-sponsored report out today.
The study "i2010 - Responding to the Challenge" criticises large European countries, particularly France, Germany, Spain and Italy, for not having the courage to reform archaic labour laws.
David Lewin, who co-wrote the study, said that after decades of productivity growth, European countries were falling behind the United States because of a lack of investment in information and communication technology (ICT).
Mr Lewin warned that without more investment in ICT then "Europe will lose the technology and fall behind and become a second- or third-world country within decades".
Companies in Europe had to pursue a policy of "creative destruction" to change the way they do business and learn from the "hire and fire" culture of the US to compete with emerging Asian companies.
Mr Lewin added: "It is all down to employment law. In the US if you are made redundant three or four times that is normal, but in Europe there is a stigma."
The call comes as one of the biggest delegations of British chairmen and chief executives today arrive in China, accompanied by Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The 40-strong group will attend seminars in Beijing later today and tomorrow, followed by sessions in Delhi, India, on Wednesday and Thursday.
Contracts worth around £2billion are due to be signed by British firms and China and India, the Prime Minister's spokesman said yesterday. They include a contract for Airbus planes.
The bosses of some of Britain's biggest companies are attending including Lord Levene, chairman of Lloyd's of London, Terry Hill, chairman of Arup, Mike Salomon, executive director of BHP Billiton and Gerry Murphy, chief executive of Kingfisher. Other attendees include Mervyn Davies, chief executive of Standard Chartered and Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP.
The trip comes after the furore about Chinese textiles breaching quotas agreed by the European Commission. Sir Digby Jones, the CBI's director-general, said: "The UK has nothing to fear from free two-way trade and investment and everything to gain. We do not export enough to China or India - only 1pc of our exports at present - this must improve."
Why upgrade Europes' status now?
If Old Europe goes down, who will we sell to?
You cannot get up if you have to hold the other sob down.
The sales go West, not East. I'm also wondering what Europe will do when we are buying more oil products on the world market from the Katrina disaster.
Why is this a problem?
This scares me. Our country is losing its status as a big engineering and manufacturing powerhouse. Who would want to set up shop or expand here when all the educated people live in China or India? I just don't see how we can maintain our economy as paper pushers, while all the manufacturing and design heads elsewhere. It can't be good from a national security standpoint either.
Judging from the behavior of the survivors in the Superdome, we have beat them to it...
They are like fish out of water and then become easy prey for criminals.
Their needing a study to tell them this proves the point.
Oh come on...regardless of what we Eurotrash people say...if there was a real Catastrophe in the US of A (defined as a problem too big to handle yourself), we would be more than willing and ready to repay what you arrogant, uncivilised fanatics did for us in the past.
Well judging from the native-born American folk we see in NO or, for that matter, the blue collar, sports obssessed yobbos who I went to elementary school with, its no surprise that we are falling behind in education.
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