Productivity in EU
Spent a long weekend in Sicily and had time to read some interesting stuff. Some quotes:

On European growth
" The pace of expansion is set to fall back this year and next to little over 2 percent - too modest to prevent a further widening of the gap in GDP per head between the EU and the United States."
Simon Tilford
Center of European Reform

My comment: too many doing low value (low pay) work

" Our growth rate is now mostly limited by our human resources capability"
Klaus Kleinfeld
CEO, Siemens

My comment: too many tied down with routine tasks

Kickstarting e-invoicing is of course only one step - but as we know not demanding large investments and possible to launch fast with the right will and skill. The target should be to get one common standard at least for the corporate mass market - the part of e-invoicing that can benefit from ready e-banking and payments infrastructure. This is well in keeping with global trends:

"We genuinly believe that radical sharing is a win-win for everyone. Expanding markets create new opportunities."
Tim Bray

"Standards is another area where openness is gaining momentum. In today´s complex and fast-moving economy the economic deficiences and liabilities caused by lack of standardization surface faster and they are more jarring and consequential than in the past."
Don Tapscott