Lisbon Strategy
Denis Staunton
The public doesn't understand it, the media is bored with it and business has given up on it, but the Lisbon Strategy to make Europe more competitive is one of the few policies that unite all EU governments and institutions. Launched at a summit in the Portuguese capital in March 2000, the strategy, also known as the Lisbon Agenda, aims to make Europe the most competitive economy in the world by 2010.
Conceived at the height of the information technology boom, the strategy aims to improve policies for the "information society", to accelerate structural reform and to complete the EU's internal market by opening up markets in such sectors as services, energy and transport. It also aims to "modernise" the European social model, to combat social exclusion and promote economic growth.
EU leaders agreed at Lisbon that the necessary reforms should be achieved through what they called the "open method of co-ordination". This meant setting guidelines and timetables for both the EU as a whole and for individual member-states but leaving national governments to develop their own policies for reaching these goals.
Some of the goals agreed at Lisbon require action at a European level, such as agreement to open up national markets in specific sectors. Many of these measures, which often involve privatisation of state enterprises or the end of state monopolies, are unpopular with citizens, especially those who work in such enterprises.
The Irish presidency will focus on four target areas: promoting economic growth and structural reform; fostering competitiveness; delivering more and better jobs; and ensuring that economic growth is environmentally sustainable.
About 14 million EU citizens - more than 8 per cent of the workforce - are unemployed, and this figure will rise after 10 new member-states join the EU in May. Unemployment in the new member-states averages 15 per cent, reaching 17.7 per cent in Slovakia and 20.6 per cent in Poland.
The presidency's strategy for boosting employment will be based on a report produced in November by an EU Employment Taskforce led by the former Dutch prime minister, Mr Wim Kok. The report concluded that the EU's success in boosting employment depended on increasing the adaptability of workers and companies, attracting more people into work, investing more in training and education, and ensuring that reforms are properly implemented.
It called for a reduction in regulatory obstacles to setting up new businesses and for lower non-wage labour costs for low-wage workers. It called for labour markets to be made more flexible while providing workers with an "appropriate level" of security.
The report urged governments to attract more people into employment by ensuring that work pays more than social benefits and by removing obstacles to the participation of women in the workforce.
The Irish presidency hopes to finalise a reform of EU rules on social security to make it easier for the unemployed to claim benefits while seeking work in other member-states. The Irish presidency will encourage national governments to improve action to reduce poverty and social exclusion.
Other plans to improve labour mobility in the EU include the "Europass" initiative for transparency of qualifications and the introduction of a European health insurance card to ensure that EU citizens can receive health care in all member-states.
One of the Lisbon Strategy's biggest problems lies in the fact that many of its goals contradict one another, pitting the interests of industry against the environment and those of workers against employers. Among the tasks facing the Irish presidency will be that of breathing life into the Competitiveness Council, a formation of the Council of Ministers that includes industry, enterprise, trade, environment and other ministers.
The Competitiveness Council, which ought to be the driving force behind the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, has yet to make an impact.
It will be chaired during the Irish presidency by the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, who will need to use all the imagination, energy and political skill at her disposal if she is to succeed in putting it on the map.