Richardson discounts the view of some Americans that doing business with the European Union simply means more bureaucracy and therefore more regulations. He says there are only about 16,000 bureaucrats in the EU headquarters in Brussels, far fewer than in most American federal agencies. It was a great simplification of regulations. He says Europe has moved to deregulate markets. For example, the air transportation market has been completely deregulated, as has telecommunications and, soon, electric power generation.
Competition is much tougher than it used to be.
The diplomat acknowledges economic problems in Germany are weighing down the whole European economy, leading to problems with the newly established euro monetary system, among other difficulties. Germany accounts for about a third of the entire European economy. We are talking about the social security system which has been put in place in Europe since the war, and Germany is, in a sense, the model for that. This social-market economy is the great achievement of Europe since the Second World War. We have a social safety net which, on the whole, takes care of the needs of practically everyone in our society to a reasonable minimum level.