Greek crisis probably sounds the death knell for the European social model

Moreover, the introduction of a common currency was meant to lead to the United States of Europe, a federation of a peculiar kind. What European elites chose to ignore was the fact Europe is not a nation, a demos, in a way that its member states are. European politicians calling now for more European solidarity are trying to engineer a European welfare state that is bound to fail. In fact, the inescapable, if not imminent, collapse of the eurozone is the harbinger of the collapse of the widely celebrated European social model. The crisis in Greece has exposed its electorate's excessive reliance on a paternalistic state, a phenomenon not limited to Greece. If it proved difficult to finance the European social model within nation-states, it is even less likely to succeed through a massive Europe-wide redistribution.

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