There is a growing clamor in the Eurozone from those who believe that the euro is overvalued, and that this is blocking the competitiveness of European products on world markets.

Arnaud Montebourg, a French government minister, said in late October that the euro should decline against the dollar by about 10%: “Ten percent is not even a devaluation, but just a correction of the exchange rate, in order to better reflect the reality of the Eurozone.” European Commissioner for Industry Antonio Tajani, according to Le Monde, agrees: “The euro is too strong now,” but stresses that he is only expressing his personal opinion and not the official position of the European Commission.

French President Francois Hollande already warned in February of the danger of an excessively strong euro. Speaking before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, he said that fiscal policy needed to be changed in the Eurozone, to make the majority of the participating countries less vulnerable to foreign exchange fluctuations. However, these proposals were not supported at that time, not least because of the position of Germany, whose exports benefit from the strong euro.

In January 2014, European Union members will be required to open their labor markets for citizens of Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007. The potential migrants are already being perceived as a threat to the countries of Western Europe. As an example of the consequences of an open labor market, politicians are abolishing the restrictions on free movement for citizens from the EU-8 countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Hungary).

Eight Eastern European countries received the right to work without limitations in all EU member countries on May 1, 2011. As a result, between April 2011 and January 2012, according to statistics from the European Migration Center (EMC), the number of labor migrants from the EU-8 countries to Germany rose by 48,000 and reached a record number of 271,000. For comparison, in previous years and for the same period from April to January, the number of migrants decreased on average by 10-20,000 because of the seasonality of most of their jobs. A major proportion of migrants – nearly 66% – are Polish citizens.

The world is changing before our very eyes. Even 15 years ago, it was reasonable to use the word “unipolarity” to talk about the power balance in politics and economics. Benchmarks for success in business were also set by Western companies. The structure of the present world order is much more diverse. The role of the locomotive of economic growth lies with developing countries, and companies that originated there are increasingly conquering heights set by Western businesses. BCG ranked 100 countries with emerging markets that have the chance to determine the shape of the global economy in the coming decades.

In recent years, developing countries have justifiably earned the title “driver of economic progress.” Already, their markets are voluminous and will be even more so in the foreseeable future, thanks to the constantly high rate of economic growth. At the same time, a national accumulation of wealth is taking place, as consumer savings grow in response to the increase in income. Overall, this leads to an improvement in the general welfare of the citizens in those countries. Thus, in 2012, private wealth grew 7.8% worldwide, mostly thanks to developing countries in Asia. Prosperity indicators in Asia (13.8%) and Latin America (10.5%) were significantly higher than the global average. Furthermore, BCG projects that by 2017, developing countries will account for 70% of all increases in private wealth.

The emission of greenhouse gases has a detrimental effect not just for China’s ecology, but for the world’s as well. In 1990, China accounted for approximately 10% of total global greenhouse gases, but today that figure is closer to 30%. While America and Europe are collectively reducing their emissions by 60 tons per year, China is increasing theirs by more than 500 tons per year. Additionally, China alone currently is responsible for two-thirds of the global increase in carbon dioxide emissions.

If you travel towards the mountains along the French Riviera, just north of the coast, among the villas, olive trees, and plants that flower year-round is the Sophia Antipolis Technopark, home to the Business Angels. They flew here from all over the world – people who believe in an idea and giving it life.

The American Marilyn Davison lives in a massive complex, located by some seemingly magical set of circumstances on Angels’ Bay in the town of Villeneuve-Loubet, not far from the Sofia Antipolis Technopark. “My husband and I were both invited to join this community. My husband worked for a small American company that has launched activities in Europe. He founded the first company, whose employees have grown over time from one person to 13. Later he worked with distributors all across Europe and the Middle East, even once going to Russia. We started in Brussels, then moved to Nice, then from Nice to Paris, then once again returned to Mougins, and finally settled here in Villeneuve-Loubet.”
“Wonderful people! Great project!” is how Marilyn Davison talks about everyone with whom she has had a chance to work. There are angels all around us, we just don’t notice them. Many such communities exist – in Nice, for example, there is a Mediterranean community, and in Paris there are many as well.

The global economic recovery is taking longer than expected. Economic instability and political uncertainty in various regions around the globe have led to economic indicators that have been slow to return to pre-crisis levels and the positive trends that emerged over the past couple years are trailing off. In their final report on the state of global flows of foreign direct investments for 2012, UNCTAD recorded an 18% decline (to $1.35 billion) with further forecasts rather restrained. Experts are talking about the possibility of raising the bar to $1.8 billion by 2015 on the condition of reducing the existing risks and restoring investor confidence in the medium term.