The welfare model of Europe is known to be unsustainable in at least one respect. As the continent's populations age, the cost of providing generous state pensions under the current rules will prove insupportable: big increases in tax rates will be needed to balance the books, bigger than most politicians think voters will accept. And another characteristically European problem is also blamed on the welfare state: chronically high unemployment. Most economists attribute this, at least in part, to a combination of generous unemployment benefits and strict employment-protection laws. Europe's leaders call on each other from time to time to do something drastic about both issues, and then do nothing.
展开▼
