European Commission document stresses EU must take advantage of favourable economic outlook to transform its economy by setting out priorities and goals as well as implementation timetable

Brussels, 29/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - As announced in yesterday's EUROPE, p.12, Romano Prodi has forwarded to all Heads of State and Government, and to the Ecofin Council, the European Commission document prepared for the Lisbon Summit. The Commission considers that this summit provides a unique opportunity to reflect on longer-term EU policy orientations, define priorities, and establish targets and dates.

According to the Commission, in order to face up to the challenges (employment deficit with rate of unemployment still around 10%; lack of qualifications required for work; ageing population; the colossal costs of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion; new technologies), the EU must take advantage of the favourable economic outlook to ensure sustained economic growth, full employment and social cohesion, which requires a new and positive vision of the future and a certain number of policies to the service of this vision. This task requires an integrated and operational approach for setting economic, social and political targets with dates and deadlines for their implementation. General policy objectives must be to: create an economy without excluded persons, which is dynamic and based on knowledge; - achieve accelerated and sustained economic growth; - restore full employment as a key target for economic and social policy and reduce unemployment to the levels already reached by the most successful countries in this respect; - modernise our social protection systems. Subject to a stable macro-economic framework, the Commission considers that the EU's response should be focused on two main policy axes:

• The pursuit of economic reform to prepare the knowledge economy. The Commission proposes six priorities: - implementation of e-Europe creating an information society for all European citizens and businesses; further improvement of the Internal Market by 2004 by attacking all under-performing sectors, like public procurement, cross border services, energy and aviation markets; - full integration of the financial markets by 2005, including risk capital, to capitalise on the introduction of the euro for the benefit of businesses, investors and consumers; - promotion of Enterprise Europe, a major benchmarking exercise to create conditions for a more entrepreneurial and innovative Europe; - creation of a true European research area by 2002 in order to make European research a key factor to future economic growth; - review of the Community's financial instruments by the end of this year in order to ensure that they are compatible with the policy priorities set here.
• The strengthening of the European social model by investing in people. The Commission gives the following priority actions: - using the values of the European social model as a base to face the challenge of full employment, which must be integrated in all European policies; - modernising social protection systems and ensuring sustainability of pension provision over the long term; - restoring full employment as the key objective of economic and social policy; increasing investment in education and training for the knowledge economy, for example, so that all schools are connected to the Internet by 2001, and the for the promotion of lifelong learning; - striving for social inclusion, not exclusion, with specific targets for poverty reduction; - promoting a new and effective social dialogue to guarantee transition to the knowledge economy.

The Commission considers that these measures require action at European, national, regional and local levels, using the instruments available: regulation, closer coordination, comparative evaluation of performances, mutual assessment and dialogue with companies, citizens and social partners. The European Council is expected, at least once per year and preferably in the spring, to evaluate progress accomplished in order to achieve all these targets and examine the EU's economic and social prospects.

In his comments on this document, President Prodi stated: "The measures proposed are ambitious but achievable. If the Commission, the Member States and European citizens at all levels summon the political energy and courage to implement this ambitious integrated programme, Europe will see a new 'renaissance' with full employment and prosperity". He went on to say that "it is essential to commit to all the reforms, economic, social and political as a package to achieve results. A pick-and-choose strategy simply will not work".

The document as well as the graphs are available at the following Internet address: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/prodi/lisbon en.htm