scotsmanTHE CIA has predicted that the European Union will break-up within 15 years unless it radically reforms its ailing welfare systems.
In a devastating indictment of EU economic prospects, the report warns: "The current EU welfare state is unsustainable and the lack of any economic revitalisation could lead to the splintering or, at worst, disintegration of the EU, undermining its ambitions to play a heavyweight international role."
Either European countries adapt their workforces, reform their social welfare, education and tax systems, and accommodate growing immigrant populations
or they face a period of protracted economic stasis.