Contributor(s): Professor Tito Boeri | How did the welfare state in Europe cope with the Great Recession and the Eurozone crisis? While a lot of attention has been devoted to (home-made) stress tests of the banking sector, no attempt has been made to date to evaluate the performance of social tax and transfer systems to reduce poverty during the crisis. This talk will address this issue, making reference, in particular, to the countries of Southern Europe, where the shock has been particularly severe. The underlying question is whether we need only a welfare state or also a welfare union. Professor Boeri is currently Professor of Economics and Dean for Research at Bocconi University, Milan as well as BP Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Professor Paul De Grauwe is John Paulson Chair in European Political Economy at the European Institute, LSE. The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) was established in 1991 as a dedicated centre for the interdisciplinary study of processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Assessment Exercise, the Institute was ranked first for research in European Studies in the United Kingdom. The LSE European Institute has been a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence since 2009.