Ahead of summit, views clash on how to reach EU Lisbon goals[fr][de] 

EU heads of states and government will be discussing the reform of the flagging Lisbon strategy during the yearly Spring Summit on 22-23 March.

Following the recommendations of an expert group chaired by former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, the Commission has proposed re-focussing the strategy on growth and jobs (see EurActiv, 31 Jan. 2005).

The overarching debate about the refocused strategy is how to balance its three dimensions: economic, social and environmental.

The main issues to be discussed by EU leaders will include:

• Increasing national ownership of the Lisbon strategy with national action plans;
• Simplifying the strategy by including fewer and more targeted objectives and by limiting reporting requirements.

Although the objectives of the strategy are fairly uncontroversial (more and better quality jobs, strengthening growth and competitiveness, etc.), the ways to achieve them have stirred heated controversy, mainly along traditional left-right lines but also along country lines. 

The Bolkestein directive's proposal to liberalise the services sector has focussed arguments on how to achieve competitiveness while at the same time preserving a high degree of social protection.

France has had to withdraw its initial support for the directive - and indeed publicly reject it through the voice of its President Jacques Chirac - because the confusion between the perceived neo-liberal Bolkestein reform and the Constitution risk leading to a French 'non' vote on the referendum on 29 May.

EU social partners have tried to put up a united front ahead of the Summit. On 15 March, UNICE (employers), ETUC (trade unions), UEAPME (small businesses) and CEEP (companies with public participation) signed a joint declaration on the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy. It states their "joint understanding" on a number of key elements relating to the EU's competitiveness including:

• Innovation: increase R&D, promote entrepreneurship
• Jobs policy: strike the right balance between flexibility and security
• Social protection: facilitate mobility, help workers cope with change
• Environment: strike the right balance between long-term benefits and short-term costs (eco-efficiency and energy savings technologies are mentioned)
• Public policies: not distorting competition, better regulate
• Macro-economic policies: fiscal, monetary, wage policies

However, getting all these different elements to work together is a tricky task and old reflexes resurface when it comes to pleasing their respective core supporters.

In a statement on 14 March, the EU employers' organisation UNICE - together with 17 other business organisations representing sectors from textiles to metals, automotive and chemicals - reiterated its plea for economic reforms "which focus on the real growth drivers" of the EU economy. Without specifically mentioning the Bolkestein directive, the alliance called on EU leaders to adopt "all EU legislation without delay which enhances the internal market". The dominant message coming from EU business organisations is that jobs and environmental policies can only deliver once the economic conditions are there.  

Responding to a call from trade unions and anti-globalisation campaigners, tens of thousands of people took the streets of Brussels on 19 March to demonstrate for a more socially-driven Europe. According to the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), they were 75,000 demonstrators marching for "the defence of employment and social rights and to show their opposition to the Bolkestein directive" which "risks opening the door to social dumping".

ETUC argues that the internal market should "not be allowed to undermine labour law or social legislation" and strongly defends public services "which must not be governed solely by competition rules". 

Similarly, there has been much talk that the re-focused Lisbon strategy would lead to a downgrading of EU environmental and sustainable development policies. "The reviews of the Lisbon and sustainable development strategies seem to say that the EU will tackle environmental issues later," WWF's European office director Tony Long told Commission President José Manuel Barroso on 15 March. "The review of the sustainable development strategy should have equivalent status to the Lisbon strategy. They should march alongside one another as complementary activities and not competing ones," he explained.