Biscuitman

Anyone who's read my pensions paper knows how badly the Lisbon Agenda, set in 2000, has failed to increase employment and growth within the EU even though its half way through its ten year schedule.

DESPAIR NOT for I have news from yonder citadel:-

Commission prepares to relaunch Lisbon agenda
20.01.2005 - 20:35 CET | By Richard Carter
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission is preparing a wholesale revamp of the beleaguered Lisbon Strategy - its ambitious goal to become the most competitive economy in the World by 2010 - in a bid to restore momentum to the process.

An draft internal Commission document, seen by the EUobserver, aims to refocus the Lisbon Strategy around three core themes: creating jobs, improving knowledge and innovation and "ensuring that Europe remains an attractive location for employment".

According to the document, the relaunch could be summarised as "more and better jobs in an innovative and attractive Europe".

The paper makes no reference to the goal of being the most competitive economy by 2010, but the text could still be changed before the publication of the Commission's relaunch of the Lisbon Process on 2 February.

10 policy areas
The Commission's Competitiveness Group - which drew up the report - recommends repointing the Lisbon strategy around 10 so-called "central policy areas"

These include: "attracting more people in employment", "more and better research and development", "promoting innovation and sustainability", "completing the internal market" and "creating the conditions for a strong European industrial base".

There is also a policy area entitled, "increasing the adaptability of workers and enterprises and the flexibility of labour markets".

And a draft outline of the 2005 Spring Report, entitled, "European partnership for growth and job - relauching the Lisbon Strategy", warns how urgent it is to breathe life INTO phpbb_the process.

"Without action, European growth would decrease to 1.5 percent of GDP in the coming years which, then, would damage our social model", the draft reads.

Mr or Mrs Lisbon
One of the key proposals in the document is to increase the "ownership" of the Lisbon Process for Member States. Many believe that a main reason for the failure of the strategy has been that the individual Member States are not sufficiently involved in the process and lack the ambition to see it realised.

The draft suggests that "the appointment in each Member State government of a Mr Lisbon / Mr Jobs and Growth to co-ordinate the national reform efforts could play an important role in this regard".

Under the plan, "Member States would be asked to devise national Lisbon programmes".

New cycle
The draft also proposes a new time frame for pushing the Lisbon agenda forward. Rather than aiming for 2010, with a "mid-term review" due this Spring, the document says, "methods and mechanisms should be clarified and simplified around a new cycle of three years".

Relaunching the Lisbon Strategy has been identified as a key objective for the Barroso Commission and is also one of the three main aims of the Luxembourg Presidency alongside forging agreement on the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact and on the EU's budget from 2007-2013.

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IF THE EU WAS THE ANSWER, IT MUST HAVE BEEN A STUPID QUESTION!