Europe's economic goals fail
By Graham Bowley International Herald Tribune
Thursday, November 4, 2004
BRUSSELS Europe's efforts to become the world's most competitive economy have failed, and the European social model faces collapse unless the Continent's governments stimulate growth and create more jobs, according to a report published Wednesday.
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The initiative, drawn up by Wim Kok, former Dutch prime minister, measures progress on the so-called Lisbon Agenda, which European Union countries introduced in 2000 with a goal of making Europe the world's most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010.
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But since then "the growth gap with North America and Asia has widened," the report says. The gloomy assessment blames national governments for the failure, and it calls on each of the 25 EU countries to publish new national targets for reform, and a timetable for meeting them.
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The European Commission would be given the role of naming and shaming countries that failed to meet the targets.
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"If we don't focus strongly on growth, productivity and employment, we will not provide the means to keep the social model," Kok said in an interview following the publication of the report.
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Amid moribund growth in the EU - especially in Germany, the Union's biggest economy - José Manuel Barroso, who will take over as European Commission president, has put the Lisbon strategy at the center of his term of office. Analysts say Barroso hopes that the goal of improving competitiveness could be the project that galvanizes the EU during his five-year term.
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The Lisbon Agenda was begun in 2000, in a bid to emulate the American economy as it grew rapidly amid a high-technology boom. But the initiative soon foundered. Countries have failed to meet the targets it set, like greater research and development investment and higher employment rates.
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the bad news continues...
http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/03/business/euecon.html