Although some politicians argue that America should emulate Europe, that choice would mean lower living standards and less prosperity. A new study from Eurochambres reveals that Europe is decades behind the US in important measures of competitiveness. The study also calculates how long it would take Europe to catch up to America, but that assumes the US becomes stagnant. In reality, as the EU Observer reports, America is growing faster than Europe and the gap between the two is widening rather than shrinking:

The EU is 22 years behind the US on economic growth according to a new study, with several other economic indicators showing further gaps despite Europe’s ambitious reform agenda to be praised by leaders at this week’s summit.

A report by Eurochambers, the Brussels-based business lobby, published on Monday (5 March) argues that the US reached the current EU rate of GDP per capita in 1985 and its levels in employment and research investment almost 30 years ago.

…according to the Eurochambers study, the EU time lag behind the US has expanded further since 2003 when the group published its first report comparing the economic indicators on both sides of the Atlantic. …Authors of the study point out that if calculations included the latest newcomers of Bulgaria and Romania, the gap between the EU and US would be even larger… in a bid to start catching up with the US on key Lisbon indicators, Europe would have to perform better than the States, according to the Eurochambers study, while the latest results show the opposite: in 2006, the US registered an average GDP growth of 3.3 percent and the EU about 2.9 percent, the highest since 2000.