Next cycle of the Lisbon strategy gets the nod

Slovenian development minister Žiga Turk: “a third industrial revolution”.

“This is a strategy that works,” said Žiga Turk, Slovenia’s Minister for Development and Growth. Productivity in the EU has overtaken the US, the public debt has more than halved and 6.5 million jobs have been created. Indeed, Slovenia – which currently holds the Presidency of the European Council – itself enjoyed heady economic growth of 6.1 per cent in 2007.

The Council also reaffirmed the target of getting member states to invest 3 per cent of gross domestic product on R&D.

That target may be fixed, but other targets the Lisbon Strategy is chasing are moving. “We can’t rest on our laurels,” said Turk at a press conference. While the prospect is that Europe could overhaul the US, China is growing at a far faster rate. And the global economic crisis makes it even more critical that reforms are rigorously implemented.

In pursuit of the Fifth Freedom, the Council backed measures to improve the mobility of researchers, students and university staff. There will also be moves to promote the use by industry of intellectual property created by public research organisations.

There was a call for “a new social agenda” to address the situation of young people, which stressed the importance of improving education, encouraging migration and fostering intercultural dialogue. As the Slovenian Presidency said, “In responding to the challenges of globalisation, we will need to rely on the creativity of our citizens, and our rich cultural heritage.”

Focusing on people and social issues is a route to encouraging creativity and “making Europe more entrepreneurial and more innovative”, said Turk.

More focus on education

The Council announced there will be a review of the skills and competences that will be needed to drive Europe’s knowledge economy up to 2020. Turk said, “We need more focus on education: educated people are the driving force behind all progress and that’s why we need to review skills requirements.”

At the same time the communications networks and computer systems supporting Europe’s scientists need to be upgraded so that everyone has high-speed internet access. There was a pledge to ensure all schools have broadband communications by 2010.

The Council also put the development of the European venture capital market centre stage, saying financing of innovative start-ups will be of “paramount importance” in the next stage of the Lisbon strategy. There will be incentives to support the growth phase of SMEs and moves to expand the range of financing options they can tap.

No European strategy on growth is complete without a pledge to cut bureaucracy, and indeed, the Council did call for more focus on opening up the Single Market. Turk said the internal market should be monitored to ensure it is operating properly and called for the implementation of the Services Directive.

All this sounds familiar, of course. Perhaps the most notable departure was in the way that the EU’s energy and climate change package has been co-opted to support the Lisbon Strategy. One of the key principles of the package, agreed by EU leaders at the Council meeting, is that all measures on energy and climate change “should also contribute to other economic goals set within the Lisbon Strategy”.

Turk said that the shift amounted to the “launch of a third industrial revolution”.

His colleague Andrej Vizjak, Slovenia’s minister of the Economy, agreed, saying there is the potential to “turn energy and climate issues into an opportunity” while adhering the EU’s March 2007 commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

“There is a huge opportunity for the economy and for the EU’s competitiveness,” he said, adding that a number of Slovenian companies have recognised the opportunity, getting involved in new energy projects and bringing new technologies forward.