Globalization and a dual Europe: future alternative growth trajectories
The integration of world markets has increased considerably in the past 15 years. Moreover, the importance of emerging countries for trade flows is now considerably higher. The paper explores the question of what the European territory will look like over the next fifteen years under different assumptions on competitive strategies put in place by the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). In these scenarios Europe is expected to reinforce its present competitive advantages. The intention is not to identify desirable, positive, ideological or most probable scenarios; the aim is instead to combine in a strictly logical way the different trajectories that can be envisaged in the main economic, institutional and social driving forces of change and consequently to build a small number of alternative, consistent and ‘conditional’ scenarios. The approach is as neutral as possible vis-a-vis the results, leaving it to the MASST forecasting model to provide NUTS 2 growth rate patterns up to 2015, under opposite assumptions on the world strategies.