The EU needs to tackle the economic crisis and move to stronger, fairer and cleaner growth. The EU27 economy is in a serious downturn driven by the euro area sovereign debt crisis and on-going weaknesses in the wake of the financial crisis as set out in the Economic Survey of the Euro Area. Longer-term prospects are for growth to be weaker than over the past twenty years, influenced by population ageing and sluggish productivity gains. Structural weaknesses in labour and product markets contribute to low productivity and employment, as well as slow growth. Higher growth would help to make current debt levels more sustainable and create more space to deal with social and environmental challenges.