February 14, 2007
Anyone remember the Lisbon Agenda?
There was a time when the spring European Council was dedicated to questions of economic reform - the annual paying of homage to the Lisbon agenda, and its vainglorious targets for making the EU the top performing economic bloc in the world.
Not any more. This year’s summit on March 8-9 will see Europe’s leaders focussing instead on energy policy and - most important of all - climate change. I doubt if their discussions on the Lisbon agenda will last more than ten minutes, if that.
I just wonder whether we are in a classic "top of the cycle" moment, when Europe lulls itself into the dangerous view that the reforms are paying off because the economy is working well.
It happened before in the late 1990s when bullish over-confidence culminated in the grandstanding of the Lisbon summit. There then followed half a decade of slump.
Does anyone think Europe’s economies are really sufficiently reformed when countries like France and Germany are running hefty budget deficits in the middle of a global economic boom and where structural unemployment remains endemic?
Things are certainly getting better and I’m not saying reforms haven’t taken place. But I sense that complacency is creeping in. Hence the relegation of the Lisbon discussion to a footnote at next month’s summit.
And I wonder whether we’re witnessing another classic "top of the cycle" phenomenon - our newly discovered concern for the environment. Don’t forget Jose Manuel Barroso and Tony Blair were hardly talking about global warming less than a year ago.
When the economy is running well, people think more about the future of the planet and less about their job security. We saw that in the late 1980s when the Greens won 15 per cent of the popular vote in the European elections in Britain, just before another slump.
Don’t you think the environment is too important to be treated as a boomtime fad by politicians, just as economic reform should not be seen as an issue only to be treated seriously when the economy is going down the pan?
I don’t miss discussions about Lisbon Agenda, because most o them were only discussions, even if that core objectives of the EU’s future economy are right.
Instead, the energy policy and the climate change issues I think they are more urgent. Here in Romania, we don’t have anymore snow during the winter, only a few days per year. This is not good!
And, personally, I believe more in the strategies of small steps then in the big illuministic strategy of Lisbone Agenda.
Posted by: Ionel Danca | February 22nd, 2007 at 2:21 pm | Report this comment