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Europe’s Competitiveness Trap by Simon Tilford - Project Syndicate:

"A flawed understanding of what drives economic growth has emerged as the gravest threat to recovery in Europe. European policymakers are obsessed with national “competitiveness,” and genuinely appear to think that prosperity is synonymous with trade surpluses. This largely explains why Germany is routinely cited as an example of a strong, “competitive” economy.

But economic growth, even in traditionally export-led economies, is driven by productivity growth, not by the ability to capture a growing share of global markets. While imports must, of course, be financed by exports, the focus on trade competitiveness is drawing attention away from Europe’s underlying problem – very weak productivity growth. And this is as serious a problem in the economies running trade surpluses as it is in those running deficits."