It took almost a decade for the European Union (EU), and the euro area in particular, to recover from the Great Recession. Something that has not fully recovered in the EU, nevertheless, is investment. The current debate about the status of the European economy often points to the need to boost investment. The efforts focus, on one side, on creating better conditions for the business sector to engage in more investment, and, on the other side, on changing the composition of public finances for government budgets to devote a larger share to investment. This policy brief argues that the space available for additional investment is less constrained than usually assumed and that boosting investment today is possible.
