Brussels, 22/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - On the occasion of the Spring Summit on 22 and 23 March, Swedish Social Democrat Prime Minister Göran Persson and Portugal's Socialist Prime Minister José Socrates (for whom this will be the first European Council since his electoral victory), as well as the former Danish Social-Democrat prime minister, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, President of the Party of European Socialists and MEP, called in Le Monde of 22 March for “five avenues toward sustainable European prosperity”. It is generally recognised that Finland, Denmark and Sweden “are among the five most competitive countries in the world after the fashion of Taiwan and the United States”, they write, specifying that these three EU countries, unlike the United States and Taiwan, have “managed to combine competitiveness and social and environmental norms”. Nonetheless, there is still a long way to go, they admit, considering that the Lisbon Strategy must be changed into a “pact with workers, citizens and enterprises of Europe” into a “five-year concrete and targeted action programme” in order to “develop Europe”. Their five avenues (Ed.: which partly correspond to the ideas of the European Commission) are to: “maintain the three-dimensional approach” of the strategy (economy and social and environmental aspects); - take on the aim of reducing unemployment by half by 2010; - “guarantee the necessary financial resources” for implementing the Lisbon agenda at the level of the EU budget and the national budgets (Ed.: a question on which President Barroso is regularly adamant); - guide Lisbon on a reduced number of goals for each of the three dimensions, “responding with stronger political signals when these fundamental objectives are not reached”; - and strengthen “transparency and political responsibility” to have successful “strong and lasting social and economic development” in all Member States with national action plans developed in cooperation with national parliaments.