âWe could ascertain that the Guilder was 5 to 10 percent undervalued against the D-Mark. It is always difficult to establish a balanced exchange rate, but one can say without doubt that the Guilder was undervalued.News like that is best released on a holiday, when people might not pay attention to it. Unfortunately, this did not precisely work, as, with the referendum approaching, even holidays do not interfere with interest in the way politicians manipulate information, particularly when it has to do with European integration.
With the exchange rate fixed and unable to adapt itself, the prices adapted themselves. This was later followed by a multiplying effect; our competitive position strongly weakened because of extreme salary increases.â
âBelgian workers are the most expensive in the world, according to a recent survey by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Belgian employers spend an average of â¬53,577 (£36,480) a year on each workerâmore than Britain (â¬46,451, £31,628)or America (â¬33,195, £22,602), and marginally ahead of both Sweden and Germany.But take-home pay is much lower than the headline figure. The reason that Belgian workers are so costly is the very high payroll taxes the country needs to fund its health and social security systems. One trade-off for such good services is an unemployment level that is now close to 13%.â
The figures do not show where the highest level of unemployment is. None of this is good advertisement of the eurozone or the whole concept of further European integration, unless, of course, we use the old socialist argument: if socialism does not work, it is because there is not enough of it.
So far, European integration has not produced the economic growth and political stability it keeps promising. I expect, we need more of it to achieve what it has not delivered so far.