More Eurozone Troubles

While it appears the financial crisis in the Eurozone has been staved off, if not solved, that doesn't mean the 16 countries that make up what should be an economic powerhouse don't have their fair share of other problems.

At the World Economic Forum on Europe, being held in Brussels today and tomorrow, the co-chairs of the event criticized the region's complex tax laws and regulations for working to drive investment elsewhere.

The Treaty of Lisbon (allegedly a "reform treaty") was supposed to result in "enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the Union and to improving the coherence of its action," but Jeffrey Joerres, chairman and CEO of Manpower USA, said it had mostly succeeded in making doing business in Europe more complicated.

"Without simplicity, companies will continue to go elsewhere. It is too easy to move out of the Eurozone, and it is getting easier and easier," he warned.

Lord Levene, chairman of Lloyd's, criticized politicians for squabbling about petty differences rather than focusing on bringing new business into Europe. "We have a lot of people spending a lot of effort producing reports, but they don't produce what we want to see," he said.

The Eurozone was designed to make a whole greater than the sum of its part. Right now, it's working that way. The mess is much bigger than what one country could produce on its own.