Social progress is one of the key objectives of the European integration process: “The Union shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress … It shall combat social exclusion and discrimination, and shall promote social justice and protection, equality between women and men, solidarity between generations and protection of the rights of the child”. (Article I–3 of the draft European Constitution). Welfare is not only a remedy for the failure of insurance markets, but also a tool to promote inclusion, solidarity and a sense of fairness. In the three post-war decades (the so-called “Golden Age”), which especially in Europe were marked by high growth rates, use of advanced technologies, high growth employment, stable lifetime employment, welfare started to emerge, at different times and on different scales depending on the country, as an integrated system that protects its citizens from significant risks. The European model redistributes many more resources for social purposes than the US and Japanese systems: on the eve of the crisis, the total expenditure on pensions, unemployment benefit, for children and families was, in relation to GDP, more than twice that of the US and Japan. This can take different forms as regards the composition of social policies and the degree of labour protection.
If the compliance regime—inclusive of policies, procedures, testing, monitoring, etc.—is geared toward shielding the compliance function itself from blame or responsibility, then it has failed to serve the institution. It also risks becoming irrelevant. Compliance has to resist adopting a “check the box” mentality—slavishly adhering to formal rules while ignoring standards of suitability, integrity, and fairness. Compliance personnel are professionals. As such, they are entrusted to exercise judgment. They are expected to make conscious choices, not merely to rely on the outcome of a particular process.6 Lawyers are not immune from a similar criticism: permitting the avoidance of legal risk to become a goal in itself, rather than a tool for advancing the purposes of the organization. When an acutely litigious mindset prevents a company from launching a cross-organizational review, or 5/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  writing a self-critical report, the near-term goal of managing discovery has overrun the broader interests of the company in honest self-assessment and improvement. A legal group should not automatically veer toward shutting down self-reflection for the sake of being able to rest easy about litigation. Similarly, compliance cannot rest easy when its processes succeed in building a paper trail, but do little to uncover and resolve problematic behavior. In short, some risks are worth taking. Thank you for listening to my remarks today. I am happy to take any questions. 1 See generally Donald Langevoort, “Behavioral Ethics, Behavioral Compliance,” in Research Handbook on  Corporate Crime and Financial Misdealing (Jennifer Arlen, ed.) (2016).