European Economic Reform: Meeting the Challenge
March 2001
At the Lisbon European Council last year, Europe's leaders committed themselves to an ambitious ten-year strategy for economic reform. The vision agreed at Lisbon is of a dynamic job-creating Europe, of a Europe that delivers on both economic and social objectives to become the leading knowledge based economy in the world.
Making this vision a reality is a major challenge: to raise the EU's employment and productivity performance beyond that of the US by 2010. Matching US performance on both measures would raise Europe's output by forty per cent - equivalent to around five thousand pounds per person per year. Meeting this challenge, and in particular restoring full employment in Europe, is at the heart of creating a just and fair society.
This paper sets out the background of this challenge and looks forward to the next major milestone, the Stockholm European Council of 23 and 24 March 2001. It is structured in six Chapters.
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