The welfare state has been developed first and in its largest extent in North-Western Europe, in Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden. It is also in these countries where the crisis and financial problems of the welfare state are felt first. The need for restructuring the welfare...

This article uses the debates of the Working Group ‘Social Europe’ of the European Convention for the Future of the European Union that drafted the Constitutional Treaty to explore the views on the European social model among representatives of the European political class. The debates...