From Prof Jeffrey D. Sachs.

Sir, Leif Pagrotsky's pessimistic appraisal of Europe ("A declining Europe must focus on the nitty-gritty," August 15) says more about the standards we use to judge our societies than about a Europe truly in decline. What Mr Pagrotsky cares about is "growth . . . that rarely crawls above 3 per cent", "increasing irrelevance . . . staring [Europe] in the face" and "relative economic decline".

What about Europe's internal peace, strong democracies, social market systems that avoid a US-style underclass, strong scientific and technological capacity, high educational attainments, generosity in aid given to the low-income world compared with aid given by other high-income countries, a proclivity to negotiate rather than to bomb, the highest life expectancy and lowest child mortality of any world region, impressive commitments to alternative energy and energy efficiency, high environmental awareness, ample leisure time for the broad population, and the stabilisation of the overall population, not to mention very high levels of self-reported life satisfaction in world surveys?

It's a cliche, but no less true for it, that the focus on gross national product growth in rich countries blinds us much more than it illuminates what is important in economic performance and the quality of life.

The sources of Europe's preoccupations have much more to do with the instability around it - in Africa and the Middle East - than with a real economic crisis in Europe itself.

Jeffrey D. Sachs,

Director of the Earth Institute,

Columbia University,

New York, NY, US