Some Europeans are finally starting to realize that cradle-to-grave social programs and high debt are unsustainable:
“We can’t finance our social model anymore — with 1 percent structural growth we can’t play a role in the world,” European Council President Herman Van Rompuy said Monday in remarks at the World Economic Forum in Brussels, just hours after European Union finance ministers approved the new program. European growth rates are lagging behind those in the United States and the rest of the world as the recovery takes shape, with Spain and Greece still in recession.
…Greece, for example, is considered by the IMF to be one of the most inefficient economies in Europe because of the patchwork of rules governing its labor markets — including the public sector’s “employment for life” practices; the syndicates that keep control over pharmacies, law offices and other professions; and the array of early-retirement rules that drive up pension costs.
via Europe rewrites its rule book in creating fund to contain financial crisis.