"Things to think about"
Fareed Zakaria, commenting on a detailed report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris published in early 2006, mentioned the assessment of the OECD's chief economist that if current trends continued, the average U.S. citizen would be twice as rich as the average Frenchman or German. The argument that Europeans valued leisure more than Americans and that as a result, even though poorer, they had a better quality of life did not persuade Zakaria. If they would be only half as well off as the Americans, this would mean poorer health care and education and diminished access to all kind of other goods and service and a lower quality of life. Necessary reform in Europe had been postponed time and again, paralyzed by strikes and protests, and the efforts to liberalize trade had also been violently opposed. European higher education and scientific research, once foremost in the world, had been steadily dedining. In some fields, such as the biomedical sciences, it was no longer on the map and might well be surpassed by Asian countries. All this meant a further reduction of Europe's position in the world. At the same time, less defense spending weakened its ability to be a military partner of the United States or even to project military power for peacekeeping purposes. The weakening of Europe meant that it could not be a serious rival to America and America's superpower status would linger on. But it was also bad for the United States, as Samuelson put it, because it weakened the world economy. Europe could no longer be a strong ally of the United States because of the commitments required of an ally: "Unwilling to address their genuine problems, Europeans are becoming more reflexively critical of America." This gave the impression that they were active on the world stage, even as they were quietly acquiescing in their own decline.
[op. cit., p. 128; destaque meu]
Walter Laqueur (2007). The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent, Thomas Dunne Books, Nova Yorque (256 pp.)