Dr. André Brie, MEP, Brussels, in March 2006

 

Six years of Lisbon strategy – a balance

 

 

At the meeting of the European Council on March 23 and 24, there also figures on the agenda the evaluation of the Lisbon strategy. In the six years of its existence, the expectations linked to this programme have not been fulfilled. Instead the markets have been “liberalised” and a massive attack at state prevention and social systems has been started. 

 

I - The Lisbon strategy (2000)

At the Lisbon summit in March 2000, the heads of state and government adopted a strategy that aimed at “increasing dynamism and competitiveness in Europe while simultaneously encouraging social integration in a lasting way.” The goal was set to achieve, until 2010, an average rate of economic growth of 3% and to create 20 million jobs. Far-reaching demands at the European and the national level were made in areas such as macroeconomic policy, enterprise promotion, encouragement of research and development, opening of markets and environmental protection. In supplement, at the summit meeting in Göteborg of 2001, there was agreed an additional package of environmental goals.

 

  For implementing the Lisbon strategy, a procedure of advancing on two tracks was decided. On the one hand, there were realised measures at the community level that were based on agreed targets set by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. On the other hand, the member states were obliged to take steps at the national level that corresponded to the guidelines agreed upon and confirmed by the Council.  

 

II -The renewed strategy (2005)

Upon half-term re-examination of the Lisbon strategy in the year 2005, the EU bodies as well had to recognise that the objectives formulated had not been reached. For instance, until 2004, following official data, 6 million jobs had indeed been created, but first of all, the social quality of employment in the EU has continued to decrease in favour of precarious employment, part-time work and low-qualified labour; second, economic performance has remained far behind the goal of the envisaged average economic growth of 3%; and third, the objectives in research, innovation and mainly education policy have not been reached either.

 

In response, the number of targets was reduced and the strategy was concentrated on the encouragement of employment and growth. Next to that, a closer cooperation between EU Commission and the member states was demanded. As the main objectives, there were mentioned an employment quota of 70% (“full employment”) as well as a share of investments for research and development at the level of 3% of GDP. 

 

III- Social-political implications

Officially, the Lisbon strategy emphasises the connection between growth and employment and social cohesion.

 

The “social reforms” demanded in the programme and implemented at this point in the whole EU aim at refashioning the social state following the principle of “individual responsibility”. This means, for instance, in the matter of old-age pensions, the limitation of public pension systems to a basic insurance that does not guarantee one’s way of life (and threatens to push people into poverty), orientation towards business-level pension funds and private prevention. In the health system, course is taken towards coverage of only “medically necessary” obligatory benefits as well as increase in supplementary payments. Labour market policy is re-oriented in the direction of reduction of state support payments as well as harshening of the conditions for their receipt. On the whole, in the case of the “reforms” in the social area, no modernisation and restructuring towards durably affordable systems can be recognised, but rather a Europe-wide retreat of the state from collective care-taking.

 

IV- The balance sheet

After six years of the Lisbon strategy, the results are sobering. For instance, the employment quota, hovering between 62.4% (2000) and 63.3% (2004), has remained almost constant. In Germany, it even sank from 65.6% (2000) to 65% (2004). The so-called poverty threat quota (share of persons with a disposable income below 60% of the national average) with 16% remained, in the reference years 2000 and 2004, at an invariably high level. In the Federal Republic, it even grew from 10% to 16%. It looks similar in the case of the long-term unemployed: Here the quota in the year 2000 amounted to 3.9%; in 2004, it stood at 4.1%. In Germany, the value rose from 3.7 to 5.4% (all data: Eurostat).

 

The main problem of the Lisbon strategy is its being tailored to the “growth fetish” that takes account neither the realities, nor the requirements.

 

First of all, growth is not an end in itself. It only makes sense if it can also be transposed into the fulfilment of social tasks and mainly the strengthening of employment.

 

Second, growth does not exist in a vacuum. It must include, first of all, ecological aspects. Growth at the expense of the environment is everything else than an investment in the future.

 

Third, finally, the development in Europe may not be pushed ahead at the expense of other states and regions. The globalisation-critical organisation attac correctly criticises that under the present conditions, economic growth is achieved mainly by trade surpluses. This leads to the cementing, especially, of the situation of underdeveloped and indebted countries.

 

Fourth: There is lacking, in the whole EU, and particularly in Germany, a domestic market orientation that would require strengthened domestic demand, larger mass purchasing power, and social security. It would be, with corresponding ecological and social quality, both an actual growth resource and a constructive answer to the justified demands of the countries of the South and East.