Making Europe Work

The Lisbon Agenda has attained something of a Joke status since it was proposed a few years back. Making the EU the most dynamic economy in the world by 2010, was always a long shot, but in good socialist fashion, the goal was set and everyone pretended that it would be achieved. Now they have come up with a sure fire way of reaching the goal.

Governments should be named and shamed if they slow progress towards making the EU the most competitive economy in the World by 2010.

So says a report by drawn up by former Dutch prime minister Wim Kok.

The European Commission should present to the Heads of State and Government and the wider public annual updates on 14 key Lisbon indicators in the format of league tables with ranking 1-25, praising good performance and castigating bad performance, naming, shaming and faming, says the conclusions of the 54 page report.

Now peer pressure may be a reasonable way to push reluctant politicians in the right way, but does anyone really think this will work. Perhaps we could support it with Stakhanov type statues of those who work hardest for the goal. It was a long time ago, so I forget what the point of the Lisbon strategy was, luckily someone was on hand to remind me.

If we do not succeed in refocusing all our policies on more growth and jobs and therefore on more competitiveness, Europe will not be able to sustain its social and environmental ambitions. Nothing less than the prosperity of the European model is at stake.

So the point in creating a dynamic economy is to preserve the social model, ie our non dynamic economy. Nothing about the importance of people being able to work, nothing about the social problems caused by long term unemployment. No, only the ability to keep paying welfare checks and inflated wages. Even so, not all of the social models adherents are happy.

But European trades unions complained that the report focussed too much on growth and jobs.

Hellooo, is anyone there. Unions complaining about a focus on job creation. Thanks for displaying your real beliefs. Screw the workers, its our members we care about. One day someone in Brussels will realise that economic dynamism is not created by government fiat. Unfortunately, by that time the whole continent will be bankrupt.