Memorandum
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- Caroline Mercer via FOX News
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- Politics·4 min to read
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Former US ambassador Gordon Sondland says Europe needs economic reform, not violence
ReFormer US ambassador Gordon Sondland says Europe needs economic reform, not violence
Writing in an opinion piece, former US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland argues that Europe's protests over living costs reflect an economic model that is no longer delivering, and that the continent needs regulatory reform and greater defense spending.
Former U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland argues that Europe's wave of street protests reflects a deeper failure of the continent's economic model, and that the answer lies in reform rather than unrest. In an opinion piece published by Fox News, he writes that demonstrations spreading from Paris to Brussels, Milan and Lisbon are driven by rising living costs, stagnant wages, unaffordable housing and deteriorating public services. He notes that in France, protests have in some cases turned into burning barricades, looted businesses and attacks on public buildings, although he stresses that most demonstrators are peaceful.
Sondland contends that the underlying problem is that many European economies have become better at protecting existing arrangements than at creating new opportunities. He points to excessive regulation, rigid labor structures, fragmented capital markets and slow decision-making as obstacles to the growth needed to sustain Europe's generous social commitments. In his view, Europe has not run out of talent but has made it difficult for that talent to flourish.
As evidence, Sondland says he has heard from executives running the American operations of major European companies, particularly in Silicon Valley, who told him they cannot innovate in Europe the way they can in the United States. He argues that these companies come to America because the U.S. ecosystem allows them to move faster, attract capital, take risks, recruit talent and commercialize ideas.
The former ambassador also raises the question of defense spending. For decades, he writes, the United States provided a military security umbrella that allowed many European governments to devote comparatively modest resources to their own defense, while directing more spending toward pensions, health care and social benefits. He suggests that had European governments been required to spend 4 or 5 percent of GDP on defense over the past three decades, their social safety nets and fiscal choices would look different today. He also argues that the American security guarantee may have made European governments less inclined to acknowledge the full threat posed by Russia, noting that Poland and the Baltic states have generally taken a different view.
Sondland writes that the bill is now coming due. President Trump has pressed NATO allies to take greater responsibility for their own security, and European governments have committed to substantially higher defense spending, even as their economies struggle to generate the growth needed to pay for it. He calls for an immediate regulatory reset, more integrated capital markets, flexible labor arrangements, faster permitting, affordable energy and an environment in which entrepreneurs can build global companies without crossing the Atlantic. He cites Estonia's digital government, Denmark's labor flexibility, Ireland's technology investment and Poland's industrial development as useful examples.
He concludes by turning to the United States, acknowledging its own protests, economic inequalities, political divisions and bureaucracy, and the struggles of Americans with housing costs, health care and education. He argues that America's greatest strength is its capacity for reinvention, a system built around constant change through experimentation, failure and improvement.
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