‘The best on Earth’: Can weak economic growth undermine Europe’s ‘very sophisticated social system’?

For Pascal Lamy, former European Commissioner for Trade and former Director-General of the World Trade Organization, the question lies at the heart of Europe's mounting economic and political tensions. The continent faces a widening disconnect between its social commitments and its capacity to generate the economic growth needed to sustain them.

European predicament

Lamy looks beyond immediate turmoil in France to identify a deeper European challenge: whether the continent can continue to sustain one of the world's most ambitious social models while falling increasingly behind its major economic competitors.