NEC News

In a newly released video entitled “At the end of economic growth ... things will get better,” filmmaker Martin Oetting explains the scientific article recently published by Steffen Lange and Matthias Schmelzer in the economic policy journal Intereconomics. The article “Beyond Growth: Europe's Path to Sustainability and Stability” appears in issue 6/2025 of Intereconomics – Review of European Economic Policy, an internationally renowned journal for economic policy debates. In it, the authors argue that a one-sided focus on economic growth cannot solve key environmental and social challenges. Instead, they advocate economic policy strategies that take ecological limits, social security, and economic stability into account.

The video, which explains the arguments in detail and illustrates them with an animation, asks: What are the political and social implications of an end to conventional growth logic, and how can alternatives be conceived? It launches the new series “Science Explained Simply.”

Watch the video here.