Western Europe is a great place to live, raise a family, and retire.
None of the tech hub countries are even remotely comparable to Europe in this sense.
If there are people in Europe who want to work in a high growth industry that desperately, they can move to USA or China.
Europe was a lot poorer in the 80's. China today has a higher GDP-per-capita then the EU did in the 80's. India has a higher GDP-per-capita than the EU had in the 70's.
If you have a decent political culture, you don't need a lot of money to avoid the worst kinds of poverty.
The accumulated wealth is long gone.
I've worked for an American tech company (and had a really good time doing so!) and visited the country. I can honestly say I'm immeasurably happier with my quality of life here in Europe.
Because I'm European, and I'd like more money and a richer lifestyle.
> Western Europe is a great place to live, raise a family, and retire.
The average new-build home in my country (the UK) is about 850sqft. That's not flats, that's homes.
> If there are people in Europe who want to work in a high growth industry that desperately, they can move to USA
Do you know how tricky it is to move to the US as a skilled worker, and how much luck is involved?
Why stagnate now? Why not the economy of the 60s? 70s? 80s?
Today life is significantly better than back then. If Europe stagnates even more then we will still be in the same place in a few decades as we are now.
I think the biggest suggestion is that the EU should standardize their legislation for creating and keeping a company. That (I think, but I'd love to hear arguments against it) shouldn't involve or be correlated with becoming more crappy capitalism like the USA (less working rights, weird health industry, etc)