The European Commission will next month urge an overhaul of economic policy-making in the European Union in a renewed bid to place the quest for growth, jobs and competitiveness at the top of the region's agenda.
According to an internal Commission paper seen by the Financial Times, Brussels will call for a simplification of the EU's Lisbon agenda for economic reform.
The agenda, launched five years ago by EU heads of state, originally sought to turn the European Union into the world's most competitive economy by the end of the decade. However, the ambitious agenda has been discredited by its ever-expanding number of targets and goals and the failure to tackle structural reform.
The Commission now wants the EU to focus on the main economic targets such as jobs, research and development, infrastructure and better regulation, rather than follow the web of economic, social and environmental targets contained in the old agenda.
Brussels also wants individual EU member-states to pledge themselves to reform.
The Commission plans to set out "recommended national actions on which member-states should make firm commitments with regard to concrete measures". Brussels would then review in an annual report the countries' national plans and their progress.
In addition, each member-state will be called upon to appoint a "Mr Lisbon" to co-ordinate national reform.
Brussels, meanwhile, intends to focus on areas where it has powers, such as EU regulations, where it will sign up to targets.
The draft proposals make clear the Lisbon agenda will now focus on economic reforms. The Commission also wants to ensure that state aid is channelled chiefly into innovation, R&D and risk capital.
The paper does not repeat the EU's commitment to becoming the world's most competitive economy by 2010, though the document is still subject to reviews.
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