Europe’s favourite economic myth is making its problems worse
Last month, “frugal” Europe went to war with Spain. According to reports first published in El Mundo and quickly amplified across northern European media, the Spanish government had redirected billions of euros from the EU’s post-COVID recovery fund toward pension payments and welfare costs.
Within days, Dutch and German politicians demanded investigations and Alice Weidel of the AfD called it proof of “socialist mismanagement.” All the while, the word “frugal” appeared in headlines unremarked and unchallenged, as though it were simply a neutral geographic descriptor rather than a false morality tale masquerading as an adjective.
But Europe’s habit of reaching for this word every time a fiscal dispute erupts between north and south has made it more difficult for citizens to understand the Eurozone’s structural problems.
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