BRUSSELS, Nov. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- European Union (EU) leaders on Friday in a summit called for urgent action on Lisbon strategy in the wake of a gloomy review report on European economic reform process.

    The report, drafted by former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, warned that the EU threatened to "seriously miss" its target of becoming the "most competitive economy in the world by 2010" and called for countries holding up progress to be "named and shamed".

    Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, the rotating European Council President, praised the report as an "excellent contribution" and said, "We have to get going. We have to give it a sense of urgency ... we must act now to make up for lost time".

    "We need to focus more sharply on the Lisbon agenda. Reforms are needed for an economically healthy and social Europe for ourselves and our children," he told a press conference.

    "Practically every country is faced with the need to take radical measures," he added.

    Incoming European Commission President, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, also called for greater effort at implementing reform to increase competitiveness, saying, "We will need to refocus priorities, measure progress and assume greater responsibility forfollowing them through".

    But other EU leaders were less welcoming. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder is reported to have described the idea of "namingand shaming" as "political suicide".

    And Austrian leader Wolfgang Schussel was also dismissive of this aspect of the report, saying that it would be better if the EU compared itself as a whole to countries like India, the US and China.

    Some thought a name change might help. Josep Borrell, the President of the European Parliament, criticized the fact that no one understood the name Lisbon Agenda - the name given to the EU's2010 economic goals.

    He suggested that citizens would understand the aim better if it went by the name of "the strategy for competitiveness, social cohesion and the environment".

    The EU leaders in Lisbon in 2000 committed the bloc to become within 10 years "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world." Enditem