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Notes -
Do these people really think so, or was it a conscious lie ?
What do you mean?
Few things work in Europe. Let's name them: public order, generally okayish. Not too much serious crime. Infrastructure is mostly fine, iirc, with not much 'debt'. Businesses don't get stolen by corrupt officials too often.
But energy policies - the bulwark of prosperity, are absolute shambles. Shale gas is not exploited at all. Nuclear is barely supported.
Renewables are still pushed despite the abysmal track record.
Germany faces deindustrialisation; Americans are talking about inviting in German companies. I'm thinking nothing will come out of that, as the black-worshipping managerial classes are unlikely to start rubber stamping tens of thousands of green cards for German immigrants and families. Can you imagine the racial equity optics of that?
Educational policies are .. risible and a failure. Few now remember the 'Lisbon strategy' which was supposed to make EU the world's most competitive economy.
Youth unemployment is high in many places, particularly southern half.
EU, as a bloc, is mostly unable to deport criminal migrants with no right of being here. The consequence is worst hit places like Italy are leaning very much right.
I don't understand what ECB is doing, but a lot of people whom I follow and who made good predictions re: markets are outraged at the incompetence.
Can you name a place where you think things do work? Put another way -- a place where that isn't struggling with some form of large scale, systemic coordination problems?
This isn't meant as a counter to your post. I'm seeking clarification about your pov.
Most places have problems, because as soon as we humans can half-ass something, we move onto the next thing.
However, there are many places that have at least the basics right. E.g. Japan/Korea have less insane energy policies.
They also did not outsource their heavy industries to the revanchist communist dictatorship that's worryingly also at the moment the most populous nations.
They aren't engaged in crazy, innumerate attempts at a green 'transition'. Or importing large numbers of people known to be a drain on state finances.
I wouldn't put Japan in the non-insane energy policy column. Have you seen their coal and LNG imports in the last decade? Their air quality must be getting awful from burning all that coal, and they're really paying the trade balance toll.
They went back to nuclear (stopped the phaseout) and want to build more.
Many European countries have also stopped their phaseouts and/or are planning to build more.
France is. Also Sweden. Nobody else big is building anything. Italy is very badly off relying on natgas- planning nothing. They're boned, as usual. Poland iirc has a small project to convert a defunct coal plant into nuclear, but it's very much one of those things that'll probably never happen beacause of endless delays and litigation by German environmentalists. Any attempt at Poland to say, pass a law about energy scarcity to prevent endless delaying objections would end up in Strasbourg and be probably deemed illegal, because judges are assholes who want to see the world freeze.
Germany hasn't done that much. Let me remind you that had they kept their nuclear fleet operating, they'd have no gas shortfall now whatsoever. IIRC like a third of their gas goes to electricity.
DE finally caved in and are going to let the three remaining plants operate, for a time.
They have three more iirc that could still be quickly brought back to operation. That's not planned to happen, yet. though I expect it may happen.
They're not planning new ones, or any conversion of fossil powered ones into nuclear.
Reactors actually under construction in Europe are really a very small category. One big in France, two small ones in Slovakia. That's it. A continent of 500 million, trying to phase out fossil fuels.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx
WNA has no section on plans, but like I said, only France and Sweden seems to want to construct a solid amount.
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