Our comfortable ideas about Europe’s wealth, strength and resilience are making us perilously complacent, says Giles Merritt in his new book ‘Slippery Slope: Europe’s Troubled Future’.

He warns that unless we waken to the dangers of ‘muddling through’ our privileged place in the world will by mid-century be only a fading memory.

The ideas put forward in Merritt’s book for addressing these threats range from shaking up the Brussels institutions to tackling the hypocrisy and inertia of member governments. He takes an in-depth look at global competition in the digital era, Europe’s inadequate security outreach and the trade and investment opportunities that must be seized.

The book closes with what Giles Merritt terms an urgent 10-point ‘to do’ list.

He emphasises that his sometimes unconventional proposals are his personal views and not necessarily those of Friends of Europe, the Brussels based think tank he founded in 1999. Challenges to them will be welcomed at the debate that’s the centre piece of the book launch held by Friends of Europe.

‘Slippery Slope: Europe’s Troubled Future’ is published by Oxford University Press and as of May 12, 2016 available in hardback at leading bookshops in Brussels, the UK and online as an ebook.