This article addresses an important topic of European public policy: the project of Social Europe within the overall Lisbon Strategy and its related policy instrument, the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). Through the theoretical lens of the Garbage Can Model in organisational theory, the article seeks to show how, in the context of tremendous socio-economic challenges, European leaders adopted the OMC largely to strike a political compromise rather than for effective problem solving. Because of its inherent weakness, together with both internal and external challenges, the OMC is deemed too difficult to serve as an effective instrument. This has largely been confirmed by the disappointing performance over the 10 years since the Lisbon Agenda. Thus, although the OMC may be praised for its value in experimental governance, the prospects for the Social Europe project over the next decade remain uncertain. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.