European business bangs 'competitiveness drum' 

Urging the Barroso Commission and the new European Parliament to be "the engine for change", UNICE President Jürgen Strube applauded the new Commission President's commitment to revitalise the Lisbon process and the nomination of Günther Verheugen as Enterprise and Industry Commissioner. In a publication " Business vision for Europe: growth, jobs and prosperity for our future ", UNICE has laid down its detailed priorities for the EU in the next five years. 

Some of the key priorities for business are: 

• the implementation of the  EU Entrepreneurship Action Plan ; 
• a more "effective and efficient" environmental policy: a review of the EU's climate change strategy and a comprehensive assessment of REACH, the EU's new chemical substances legislation; 
• the speedy adoption of the  Community Patent with a single-language regime (English); 
• better transposition of the Lisbon directives (see  state of play ) and fast adoption of the  services directive ; 
• a moratorium on social legislation; 
• industrial market access to foster international trade and investment.  

For European business, the economic growth dimension of the Lisbon agenda has a clear priority over the environmental and social pillars of sustainable development. "... there is no job creation, no sustainable social protection, no viable environmental policy without growth, and there is no growth without competitiveness," said  Jacques Schraven, President of the Dutch employers organisation VNO-NCW . 

This focus on competitiveness and economic growth as the "indispensable basis for sustainable development and well-being" (from UNICE's "Business Vision") is being criticised by social and environmental NGOs. In their evaluation of the EU's Sustainable Development Strategy, the  Green Eight (the umbrella organisation of eight green NGOs) accused the Commission of not doing anything "against the overtaking of the Lisbon Process and its one-dimensional focus on competitiveness". For the NGOs, "in the long term, economic growth, social cohesion and environmental protection must go hand in hand".