To be the dominant economic force, the EU must have economic reform, particularly in the areas of labour reform, pension reform, fiscal reform, and social reform.
The EU has promised this for the better part of 20 years, but has done nothing much to date.
Germany's labour market and pension reforms have been at a virtual standstill ever since Gerhard Schroeder took over as Chancellor.
He promised the reforms but has delivered little to date.
The same goes for France, Italy, Greece, the "Low Countries", Scandinavia, Spain, etc.
On the process of reforms, both Ireland and the UK lead the EU.
Another facet of achieving economic dominance is to have a strong and growing economy.
So far, the EU has been languishing (last 4+ years) on <2% growth (actually, closer to sub-1.5% growth).
So, they need to overcome this.
Then, there is the ageing problem. But for Europe, this is compounded by the projections that EU population will decline from 375 million (2000) to 364 million (2050), whilst the working age population will decline from 246 million (2015) to 203 million (2050). Italy is projected to fall by 17% (from 2000 to 2050), Spain by 11% and Germany by 8%. France is projected to grow by 5% and the UK by 4%. Ireland is projected to grow by 26%.
See the attached OECD link for further details: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/28/1941212.pdf
In many respects, the OECD report suggests that the working age population may have already peaked in Europe.
As for the US, its population is projected to grow from 282 million in 2000 (currently, ~295 million) to 420 million by 2050 (with the high end US Census projection suggesting a figure closer to 500 million).
Of this number, Hispanic (of any race) are projected to increase from 36 million (2000) to 103 million (2050), White (alone, not Hispanic), from 196 million to 210 million, Black (alone) from 36 million to 61 million, Asian (alone) from 11 million to 33 million, and Other (races) from 7 million to 22 million.
See the attached link: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj/natprojtab01a.pdf
Based on the above, I simply cannot see how the EU can become the dominant economic force. And that's before you consider: 1. a lack of political integration; 2. conflicting social and policy agendas; 3. nationalism; 4. the lack of a common language; 5. a number of languages which are declining in global importance (except for English and Spanish - both of which are widely spoken in the US - especially southern US and California, for Spanish); 6. a lack of genuine unity which can only be overcome by doing away with the idea of the Nation State
