ABSTRACT

Neo-liberal Europe During the NWO, the countries of Europe, both East and West, and the European project evolved as neo-liberal entities. That is to say, as a result of the

‘regime change’ which followed the so-called ‘crisis of Keynesianism’ in the 1970s (Forsyth and Notermans, 1997; Gillingham, 2003), the countries of Europe and the European project continued on the liberal road but, from 1985, they sought to dis-embed (Holman, 2004) the mixed economy system in favour of the market:

Where the former [regime change] resulted in a shift from warfare state to welfare state, the latter [regime change] shifted the balance of power between public and private power, reduced market-correcting interventionism, unleashed competition between governments as well as producers, and created a long-term tidal pull toward an open economy that could not easily be reversed.