I’m in Paris for an economics conference, opening tonight with what is billed as a debate (although it’s more of a dialogue) over European economics with Mario Monti. So it’s worth looking at the ever-valuable Eurostat (pdf) for an update on Europe’s truly remarkable performance since the crisis struck:

Photo

Actually, it’s not just the performance — with employment, after a slight uptick, back to declining 5 full years after the recession began — that’s remarkable; so is the fact that, as far as I can tell, European leaders don’t see this performance as a sign that there is anything fundamentally wrong with their policies, the structure of the euro system, or both.