To take one example, despite institutionally rather unfavourable framework conditions, Germany was a front-runner in the late 1960s and early 1970s under Brandt. In the period after 1998 (when a red–green coalition was in power), there was another, but more ‘reluctant conversion to EPI’ . Similarly, Blair’s ‘new’ Labour government, elected in 1997, revamped the means for delivering EPI in the UK. By contrast, the three systems that arguably have done the most to implement EPI – namely the EU, Norway and Sweden – witnessed a reversal of earlier commitments to EPI after the political leadership changed