BRUSSELS, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) Tuesday unveiled a plan for its member states to boost their implementation of the bloc's flagship reform strategy for economic growth and job opportunities in the next three years.
In its strategic report on EU economic reform, the European Commission announced a series of actions in each of the four priority areas -- knowledge and innovation, unlocking business potential, investing in people and modernizing labor markets, and energy and climate change -- which were outlined by EU leaders at their spring summit in 2006.
As the first three-year cycle of the Lisbon strategy, an economic reform agenda relaunched in 2005, draws to an end, the 27-nation EU is aiming to give fresh impetus by setting out a limited number of high-impact actions during 2008-2010.
On knowledge and innovation, the commission proposed steps toward the "fifth freedom," the free movement of knowledge through the creation of a genuine European Research Area and an integrated patent jurisdiction with a single affordable patent.
It called on its member states to draw up national broadband strategies and set national targets for high-speed internet usage aiming at a 30-percent connection rate of the EU population and connection of all schools by 2010.
As for the business environment, the commission called for an integrated policy approach to foster the development and growth of small and medium-sized enterprises, which create nine out of ten new jobs.
On investing in people and modernizing labor markets, the Commission called for action plans and targets to substantially reduce early-school leaving and improve basic reading skills.
On energy and climate change, the commission emphasized the importance of completing the internal market for energy, calling on member states to set mandatory energy reduction targets for government buildings and to systematically include energy efficiency as an award criterion for public procurement.
The commission's proposals also strengthened the external aspect of the Lisbon strategy, combining openness with a demand for equal market access to other economies.
Dialogue with third countries would be strengthened and streamlined, with a clearer focus on globalization issues of mutual interest such as market access, regulatory convergence, migration and climate change, it said.
The commission hoped its proposals could be adopted by EU member states at their summit scheduled for March 2008.
The EU's Lisbon strategy to modernize Europe was first agreed in 2000 by EU leaders in Lisbon, capital of Portugal, initially aiming at making the EU "the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world" by 2010. But the bold strategy was later watered down and relaunched in 2005, with a clear focus on growth and jobs.
The commission said almost three years after it was relaunched in 2005, the strategy is working, although there is more still to be done.
Thanks to the structural reform carried out under the strategy, the EU registered a remarkable economic growth of 3.0 percent last year, the fastest pace since the beginning of the decade. Economic growth in the 27-nation bloc is expected to remain at 2.9 percent in 2007.
For the first time in a decade, strong increases in employment have gone hand in hand with robust productivity growth, the commission's report said.
Almost 6.5 million jobs have been created in the last two years, and unemployment is expected to fall to under 7 percent, the lowest since the mid-1980s.
EU budget deficits have been significantly reduced, from 2.5 percent of the bloc's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005 to a forecast 1.1 percent in 2007, while public debt has declined from 62.7 percent in 2005 to just below 60 percent in 2007.
However, the report found some member states had responded more robustly than others and some signs of "reform fatigue" had become apparent over the last 12 months.
According to the report, most EU member states have now implemented the main economic reforms which they had pledged to bring in between 2005 and 2007, except Hungary, Poland and Slovakia which were judged to have achieved just "limited" progress in that respect.
Although progress has been made on the Research & Development (R&D) spending and the labor market, targets previously set by the relaunched Lisbon strategy appeared far from reach, if not impossible.
R&D spending has been taken as an important aspect of the relaunched strategy to stimulate economic growth. Among its two EU level headline targets, the strategy called for investment of three percent of Europe's GDP in R&D by 2010.
The proportion of GDP spent on R&D in the EU has recently failed to keep up with stronger economic growth rates and with large differences between member states.
Europe is still lagging behind other leading economies in investment in information and communication technologies and in their use to enhance productivity, the report said.
"The Lisbon strategy is working. It is creating growth and jobs. It is helping position Europe and European citizens to succeed in the age of globalization," said President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso.
"But complacency would be fatal to Europe's prospects of shaping globalization. Much more remains to be done," he said.
