Court of Justice lawyer-linguists competition (AD 7): 2025 cycle and next cycle

The demographic ageing of developed countries results from the combination of two dynamics: the continuous lengthening of life expectancy and the persistent fall of fertility below the replacement threshold. In the European Union, the share of those aged 65 and over rose from around 14% of the population in 1990 to 21% in 2022, while the share of those under 15 declined over the same period. This twin movement profoundly alters needs for public services: health, long-term care, pensions, adapted housing. The social-protection models inherited from Esping-Andersen's typology (1990) - liberal, conservative-corporatist, social-democratic - respond to these challenges according to contrasting logics: the first privileges means-tested benefits, the second employment-linked insurance, the third universal services funded by taxation. None of these models is fully shielded from the budgetary tensions linked to ageing, but they do not respond to them with the same intergenerational fairness.