Perched on a knoll rising gently above a man-made pond in Brussels’s stunning Parc Leopold sits the stately five-story granite building that once housed Europe’s first parliament. Years ago, that legislature began splitting time between Strasbourg, Luxembourg, and a sleek new building in Brussels.
The migration of the EU parliament is a fitting metaphor for a fast-moving trend that has taken hold on the Continent in the wake of its collapsing economies: the imposition of, and now the attempt to roll back, a series of measures to trim spending that Europeans often label, in a derogatory fashion, “austerity.” But after a period of pushback, pro-austerity forces are gaining strength by promoting responsible budgeting throughout the developed world.
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