Competitiveness to be high on agenda

European Union leaders have pledged to accelerate efforts to boost Europe's competitiveness and to explain to citizens the necessity of economic reform.

At the start of a two-day summit in Brussels, the leaders discussed a report by a high-level group led by the former Dutch prime minister, Mr Wim Kok, which criticised their failure to implement reforms that are central to the Lisbon Agenda, the EU's 10-year plan to boost economic competitiveness.

The incoming Commission president, Mr José Manuel Barroso, told the leaders that he wanted to make the Lisbon Agenda a top priority for the Commission in advance of next year's mid-term review of the programme, but said he needed a commitment from national capitals to take more decisive action. Mr Barroso called for the appointment of a minister responsible for competitiveness in each national government and for national action plans for reform in each member-state.

Mr Barroso acknowledged the political difficulty of selling painful reforms, but insisted that it was essential that citizens should understand the reasons behind such changes.

"We must show leadership and explain why globalisation and an ageing population make such reforms essential and unavoidable for the Union. Communication is a key factor. I intend to include in the mid-term review an analysis of the huge economic, social and environmental costs of letting Europe stagnate - the real costs of non-Lisbon," he said.

The president of the European Parliament, Mr Josep Borrell, told the leaders that the name of the Lisbon Agenda should be changed to one that citizens could understand.

"Nobody knows what we are talking about. I suggest we refer to the strategy for competitiveness, social cohesion and the environment," he said.

Mr Borrell endorsed the Kok report's conclusion that high employment represented the only way of financing the European social model. He suggested, however, that the goals set in Lisbon five years ago could now be unrealistic.

"We must bear in mind that such objectives were set during a period of economic prosperity. In these economically straitened times, it must be concluded that achievement of those objectives is still a distant goal which will not be reached in 2010 either, unless considerably greater efforts are made. And when objectives are plainly unattainable, we must have sufficient courage to revise them without giving up hope of achieving them within a realistic period," he said.