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This stands in contrast to the current situation in the European Monetary Union. Its large member states in particular suffer from endemic growth problems, structural weaknesses and high unemployment. In light of this comparison, it is not surprising that any proposal for the UK to join EMU at this stage is widely regarded as economically disadvantageous, quite apart from deeper cultural-historical misgivings in the UK about further European integration. Moreover, correlations suggest that the US business cycle is no less important for the British economy than the degree of activity in the EU (Chart 1). In many ways, the lessons for Switzerland are more complicated. Unlike the UK, Switzerland has had to endure a protracted period of very low economic growth. Indeed since 1980 and on an accumulated basis, Switzerland has had the poorest growth performance amongst the advanced economies (Chart 3).3 As a result, a widespread and welcome political and media debate about how to boost our country’s growth performance has emerged. At the same time, the absence of a deep economic crisis experience, the mix of proportional representation, direct democracy, strong federalism and the resulting consensus-oriented political process has so far prevented the implementation of a genuine wide-ranging liberalization program. As a result, there is a latent belief embedded in many economic debates in Switzerland that the only way successfully to complete the necessary structural reform program is to join the European Union.