The Eurozone crisis since 2010 has instilled political disunity and generated a long period of economic stagnation. The cyclical recovery enjoyed in 2017 is no cause for complacency. It should act as an impetus to undertake long-overdue reforms, which require a change in perspective to develop a medium-term orientation for the next decade. There is no future for those incapable of investing. There is no stimulus for innovative investment in countries that have been converted to the hegemony of finance at the expense of productive investment. Europe must confront the challenges of the 21st century by recovering its ideological autonomy in the community spirit of its origins,which can be summed up as social progress.This book demonstrates the need for a long-term vision with two goals: reconstructing a social contract based on an entrepreneurial partnership and investing in the ecological transition. This political vision will restore to citizens of the member-states a sense of belonging to a wider community. To attain this, argues, Michel Aglietta, one of the most important heterodox economists today, we must strengthen European institutions at the financial and fiscal levels. This involves making the euro a full currency, endowed with democratic legitimacy.

Michel Aglietta is Emeritus Professor at the Université Paris-Ouest, where he is a scholarly advisor to the CEPII and France Stratégie. His previous books include A Theory of Capitalist Regulation and Money: 5,000 Years of Debt and Power.