In the times of economic slowdown, when the biggest European economies going through economic stalemate, when US and Chinese economies still look very good even in the current trade war, the growing disparity of US and China toward Europe is becoming quite worrying. 

In recently finished campaign for the European Parliament, the running candidate, Frans Timmermans, pointed out that separated, Europe is weaker than US, but it’s stronger than US if European countries are stick together. I don’t know how Frans Timmermans concluded that Europe is stronger than US if it’s stick together, I don’t know on which data he is relying (actually, I don’t think he is using any data; or his data is out of date), but it’s definitely wrong: even today, Europe, together, is weaker than US, both, economically, not to mention militarily: US GDP is about 20.5 trillion dollars and the GDP of the Eurozone is less than 14 trillion. The whole Economy of EU, with UK on its way out, is about 18.8 trillion dollars. China already exceeded Eurozone, with the growth of over 6% per year. The growth of Euroarea is about 1%, with recession looming in Germany and Italy. Militarily, both countries are far beyond EU, with its scattered armies together big only on the paper.

But it’s not everything so gloomy for Europe, and there’s two words for that: Eastern Europe. 

Poland, Hungary and Romania have the long standing reputation of migration and corruption, immigrating into Western Europe for jobs and  spending EU money at home. But this is about to change: while big European economies having problems with economic growth, Eastern European economies are booming, with Poland, Hungary and Romania recording the growth of over 4%, with other Eastern European economies with about 3% or over. 

Another thing about Eastern European economies is that they, unlike Southern European economies, don’t have pig public debt. This is making these countries stable. This is the situation which is unreported, but it’s changing many trends and prejudices which are going with countries like Poland and Romania, which is causing worryings of continuation of cheap labour pouring into Western European countries. But this trends are already changing greatly, with, to some extent, reversing, which is logical. 

The EU enlargement policy is paying off. Even though this is to some extent controversial policy in the Western European countries, the current trends always clouding broader context and long run tendencies. Internal market and strong Europe is crucial for European well being. Thanks to massive internal market US is still leader in GDP, and even though it has far smaller export per capita than Germany or Japan, it has significantly bigger GDP per capita. In that regard, Europe needs more internal market and more Eastern Europe in order to bust big European economies slowing down, and bust overall security and well being. 

The Eastern European surge is unreported, but it shouldn’t be, because in 2019 it’s one of the rare tendencies which are making Europe keeping pace with US and China.