Globalization

It was an article of Clyde Prestowitz in the Boston Globe, I have liberally taken from it.
It was talking about USA, but it fits Europe perfectly...

While European state governors extend financial incentives to attract investment, they have only peanuts to offer compared to foreign countries, and, of course, do not control their own currencies.
The EU government has long shown no interest in attracting foreign factories to or keeping EU factories on its shores.
Rather, Europe's emphasis is entirely on consumption-led growth. Banks aggressively offer credit cards to students with only part-time jobs.
Home equity loans with tax deductible interest payments are used to pay for vacation trips. Europe tells consumers it's their patriotic duty to buy more. Europeans at all levels really do believe that debt and deficits don't matter.

This has produced a world with one net consumer, Europe, which now consumes more than it produces.
All other major economies are net sellers.
Because Europe consumes more than it makes, it must borrow from abroad to finance its excess consumption.
To maintain global growth, Europe must consume and borrow ever more.
Consumers love the low import prices, Europe CEOs love the foreign tax holidays, and the Europe government loves the foreign lending that helps keep Europe interest rates low. But the chronically overvalued Euro and the foreign investment incentives also cause a steady transfer of production and technology abroad while putting downward pressure on wages and building large foreign claims on future Europe income. This results in political pressures and Europe charges of unfairness against trading partners with big surpluses.
Now the sustainability of the system has been put in question by the entrance of 3 billion new players from China, India, and the former Soviet bloc at a moment when the Internet and global air express have negated time and distance along with the long standard economic assumptions that labor, capital, and technology don't move between countries.

These new players are unusual. While having the low wages of developing countries, several hundred million of them have first world skills. That they are effectively next door and also planning to grow by exporting to Europe markets dramatically increases the pressure on an already stressed system. Even for Europe there are ultimate limits on consumption and borrowing.
Not surprisingly the global economy will be in deep crisis.