The Eurozone has been in a crisis for more than 8 years now, and the crisis is still unresolved. Those countries hit hardest by the crisis suffer from mass unemployment. In some cases, their per capita income and overall consumption are far below pre-crisis levels, with no rapid improvement in sight.

A recent study by Jörg Bibow and Heiner Flassbeck, to be presented in Brussels for the first time, blames the economic policy of the euro area, misguided by mainstream economic theory, for this bleak development.

The study claims that the so-called fiscal multipliers had been miscalculated, thereby underestimating the negative effects of Troika policies on domestic demand and employment. The detrimental effects of a combination of government austerity policy and wage reduction policy on overall consumption and jobs had to be expected and therefore could have been avoided, so the authors of the study.

Which lessons can be learned from past experiences? Are the main political actors ready to change the course of economic policy? How do the trade unions view the recent timid calls from the European Commission for fiscal expansion and more public investments? And why are Member State governments still opposed to an end to austerity policies within the Eurozone?