A very interesting article by Frederic Erixon is published at Bloomberg. It is called "To Thrive, Euro Countries Must Cut Welfare State". It is worth reading it. It is very edifying... I would confirm its thesis, that the main problem of Europe (and USA too, I can add) is the welfare state that stimulates the lazy consumption and represses working and entrepreneurism. It is a logical absurd to guarantee rights (such as minimum income) without guaranteeing obligations against them. In fact the welfare state is a poison for the society. It can destroy the society entirely. The progress and growth are based on real work, and not on government programs and social rights.

It is interesting to know that in France there is more that 10 absolutely legal methods to live, without working. Even if you are not ill and have the ability to work, you don't have to work, as you can live as a parasite using the enormous social system. Also in France, you have administration and bureaucracy bigger than in Greece, that had already defaulted. And some analysts pointed that the Greece bureaucracy was bigger than the totalitarian socialist bureaucracy of USSR. So what about the French bureaucracy then...:))) At the moment this highly paid and doing nothing officers are consuming 12% of GDP. In addition to this, in France we can see millions of people that are 3rd generation living without working - so called profession "unemployed" - paid up by government to sit at home and do nothing.
The same is all over EU. The wrongful welfare state established after WW2 destroyed the classic capitalism and ruined the economic fundament of Europe. Real economy is out of Europe, it is in more free and capitalistic regions (mostly in Asia). But the main damage of the welfare state is in changing the thinking of the people. After half a century of stupid pro-social education and uninterrupted political marketing based on inculcating  the rightness of welfare state, the EU population now knows and believes that it has to have rights, and guaranteed income, and does not have to work for it. The people think and believe this is normal and right. This mind-damage is disastrous for Europe as it creates resistance to every attempt to reform the system. And this way - further worsening the situation.
At the end of 80-s it bankrupted the Eastern Socialism. But on West it also was Socialism (some better organized, and with more democracy, but generally - also Socialism). It won 2 more decades, thanks to high extent to borrowing loans and government indebting. But now the moment of truth is coming...

Dobri