For the third year in a row, the seemingly perpetually sickly European economy appears to be heading for a nasty case of déjà vu. The prime witness is the well-meaning yet hapless figure of Olli Rehn, formerly in charge of economic and monetary affairs in the outgoing European Commission. As the Commission’s chief economic cheerleader, presiding over Brussels’ largely disappointing budgetary consolidation strategy, Rehn has been permanently on the lookout for silver linings in otherwise black clouds. His predictions of better times around the corner have regularly been dashed. The bitter truth is that, over the e ... (full story)