The experiences of 259 regions in 21 European countries with within country GDP per capita and labour productivity growth suggest that variables associated with pro-active, growth oriented strategies are consistently more important predictors of successful regional development than variables related to austerity for a range of measures of successful development. Since regions are the only historical examples of restructuring in currency unions, we therefore also argue for a more growth oriented strategy to solve the problems of the European periphery and outline some features of such a strategy.