The Lisbon Strategy, also known as the Lisbon Agenda or Lisbon Process, is an action and development plan for the European Union. It was set out by the European Council in Lisbon on March 2000.

It was prepared also in relation with the broader Council of Europe, the international organization of the "Large Europe", also in charge of education in Europe.

Between April and November 2004, Wim Kok headed up a review of the program and presented a report of the Lisbon strategy containing suggestions on how to give new impetus to the process.

The review group comprised 12 figures representing different Stakeholder groups. Among these are Anne-Marie Idrac, chair of RAPT, the Paris public transport system, and a former Transport Minister; Will Hutton, governor of the London School of Economics and chief executive of the Works Foundation; and Niall Fitzgerald, chair of Unilever and co-chair of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, a lobby organisation criticized to represent US-american interests in Europe.

The Commission used this report declare that the social and environmental parts are not a priority anymore and declared a restart of the Agenda unter the economic terms only.

Background and objectives

The Lisbon Strategy intends to deal with the low productivity and stagnation of economic growth in the EU, through the formulation of various policy initiatives to be taken by all EU member states. The broader objectives set out by the Lisbon strategy are to be attained by 2010.

It was adopted for a ten-year period in 2000 in Lisbon, Portugal by the European Council. It broadly aims at making "the EU the world's most dynamic and competitive economy" by the 2010 deadline.

The Strategy

The main fields are economic, social, and environmental renewal and sustainability. The Lisbon Strategy is heavily based on the economic concepts of:

• Innovation as the motor for economic change (based on the writings of Joseph Schumpeter)
• The "learning economy"
• Social and environmental renewal

Under the strategy, a stronger economy will drive job creation in the EU, alongside social and environmental policies that ensure sustainable development and social inclusion, which will themselves drive economic growth even further.

Key thinkers and concepts

Contemporary key thinkers on whose works the Lisbon Strategy is based and/or who were involved in its creation include Maria Joao Rodrigues, Christopher Freeman, Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Luc Soete, Carlota Perez, Manuel Castells, Giovanni Dosi, and Richard Nelson.

Key concepts of the Lisbon Strategy include those of the Knowledge Economy, Innovation, Techno-Economic Paradigms, Technology Governance, and the "Open Method" of Steering.

Bibliography

• Maria Joao Rodrigues (2003), European Policies for a Knowledge Economy, Edward Elgar.

See also

• Community Patent
• Sapir report (written by André Sapir, member of the European Commission)

Lobbying around the strategy

• Transatlantic Business Dialogue, which took part in the report for a new restart of the agenda
• UNICE

External links

• Official EU statement on the Lisbon Strategy (http://europa.eu.int/comm/lisbon_strategy/index_en.html)
• New web site of the new start for Lisbon Strategy (http://europa.eu.int/growthandjobs/)