Southern EU is on the track of economic recovery.
Are Finland and The Netherlands becoming the new south in Europe?
Finland has always prided itself as one of the most disciplined economies in Europe.
Honestly, nobody outside Finland did care much about this achievement.
The last 8 quarters or so the economic growth in Finland has been close to zero and sometimes negative. Netherlands did not perform much better.
In 2013 Finland paid about 1 billion Euro to developing countries, while at the same time Finland itself is becoming a major developing country.
The public sector “contributes” about 57% to the GDP in Finland. The largest in Europe! Taxes both in Netherlands and Finland are one of the highest ones in Europe.
So now wonder that since 1990 the Finnish government debt has grown four times!
Finland was several years ago one of the best performing countries in Europe. Destroying performance is very quickly done; politicians (and citizens who vote for them) seem to manage this task perfectly well.
The large companies in Finland and Netherlands will survive this crisis as well, because they have the means to export.
SMEs will suffer, due to the already tiny domestic market shrinking even further.
The fact remains, that all nations need the SME sector, because they are the largest contributors to high employment levels.
When do the politicians really understand this and do something real for SMEs, consequently for GDP.
Finland is becoming the new “South” with low cost country production opportunities.
