EU leaders will be told next week that they have failed to act with sufficient urgency to implement the Lisbon Agenda on economic improvement. Urgent action is needed to further the agenda, according to a report from the former Dutch prime minister, Mr Wim Kok. Cliff Taylor, Economics Editor and Denis Staunton in Brussels, report.
A league table of performance in the report shows that Ireland performs relatively strongly on growth and productivity. However, research spending is below target, prices here are high and we have done less well on tackling poverty.
In March 2000, European leaders meeting in Lisbon committed the EU to becoming the most dynamic and competitive economy in the world by 2010. A team led by Mr Kok was charged with reporting on progress towards the Lisbon agenda and will deliver a report to next weekend's EU Summit.
The report, a copy of which has been seen by The Irish Times, is highly critical, saying that "the disappointing delivery is due to an overloaded agenda, poor co- ordination and conflicting priorities". A key issue "has been the lack of determined political action". The report calls for action in five key policy areas - the knowledge society, the internal market, the business climate, the labour market and environmental sustainability.
The expert group, chaired by Mr Kok, says that the European Council of EU leaders must now take the lead, that member states must prepare and deliver on programmes and that the European Commission must report on this and support it through new policies. The European Parliament, should play "a pro-active role in monitoring performance".
One of the problems identified is that the agenda is too broad: "Lisbon is about everything and thus it is about nothing". Currently 100 indicators are attached to the Lisbon process and this should be narrowed to 14 key goals.
Despite the Lisbon agenda, Europe's economic growth is slower than the US and it is suffering from low productivity growth. Since 1996 the average annual growth in EU output per head has been 0.4 percentage points below that of the US. It concludes that "at risk - in the medium tern - is nothing less than the sustainability of the society Europe has built."
There is no single "magic bullet" to address this, the report finds. It calls for new policy urgency including new measures to promote the use of information technology, boosting R&D spending to 3 per cent of GDP and education measures such as halving the number of early school leaves.
An active plan is needed "to attract more of the best and brightest researchers to Europe and the EU must finally adopt a Community patent to protect intellectual property rights".
A new urgency is needed in completing the internal market, the report says, including to service industries and to creating the right climate for entrepreneurs. The group also urges new measures to make labour markets more effective.
Ireland's report card
The Kok report measures the relative performance of the 15 EU member states (pre-enlargement ) on a range of criteria.
On Growth: Ireland is almost 22 per cent above the average, while labour productivity here is 20 per cent above the norm.
On Jobs: The percentage of our population in work - 65.4 per cent - is one point above the average, though female employment and employment of older people is above average.
On research and investment: R&D spending here at 1.2 per cent of GDP is below the 2 per cent average and well down on the 3 per cent target. However, overall business investment is above our EU partners.
On prices: Prices here are 18 per cent above the EU average.
On poverty: Some 21 per cent here are "at risk" of poverty, above the 15 per cent average, though long-term unemployment is half the norm.
On the environment: Greenhouse gas emissions have risen faster than the average, though the energy intensity of our economy is lower.
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