The latest issue of Social Europe Journal addresses the most pressing political issue of our time: The Global Economic Meltdown. Whereas it seems clear that the old financial system needs to be overhauled, it remains unclear what a new model will look like and what this crisis means for the 'real' economies now going into recession.

With this issue, we want to contribute to structuring the ongoing debates and outline new policy directions. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and Stefan Collignon go right at the heart of the crisis in their contributions on new financial regulation and what the crisis means for social democracy.

We also start a new debate on Social Europe. John Monks, Roger Liddle, and Giuliano Amato reply to the renowned social scientist Fritz Scharpf, who argues for ignoring rulings of the European Court of Justice in order to save traditional social policies.

We conclude this issue with Christophe Rouillon looking at the role of public services in the EU and Lewis Baston addressing the interesting question: Why are we so keen on US Presidential elections whereas we seem to care much less about elections in Europe?