What are the priorities for policymaking by the European Union after the No votes in the referendums on the constitutional treaty? How can policy be improved? These are the two questions raised by this year’s annual Wincott Lecture, delivered on Monday in London by that rare bird, a prominent pro-market French economist. Patrick Messerlin, professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, has long stood out for his robust defence of economic liberalism. His lecture takes the argument forward in intriguing ways.*

Mr Messerlin suggests that the votes were neither surprising nor disastrous. But they do end, at least for the moment, the dream of an ever-closer union across an EU of at least 25 member states and 450m people. Almost everything that comes under the heading of the “social model” – labour market regulation, taxation, social security and core public services – will, for example, remain under predominantly national control. Member states will, no doubt, continue to flounder in their attempts at reform. They will have nobody to blame for the wretched consequences but their incompetent selves.