There's not a lot of evidence for this. One of the oldest refrains of the post-1968 US biz culture is the lament that Europe's welfare states are unsustainable, but that the new generation is, fortunately, becoming Americanized. (My favorite is a writeup on European high-tech in Fortune from 1980 or 1981, predicting Japan and the US were going to totally crush Europe. STM Micro, Infineon and Nokia are laughing all the way to the bank.) But the fundamental structures of the EU accumulation engine -- huge public banks, heavy state intervention, civilian R & D instead of military-industrial boondoggles, powerful unions and short workweeks -- are not only intact, they're spreading to Eastern Europe. Deutsche Bank has sold off most its industrial stakes, but the public banking sector (one-third of all German banking assets, and a significant player in Italy, France, Spain and elsewhere) and the EIB has more than compensated.
-- DRR