During the meeting of the European Council in Lisbon (March 2000), the Heads of State or Government launched a "Lisbon Strategy" aimed at making the European Union (EU) the most competitive economy in the world and achieving full employment by 2010.

This strategy, developed at subsequent meetings of the European Council, rests on three pillars:

• An economic pillar preparing the ground for the transition to a competitive, dynamic, knowledge-based economy. Emphasis is placed on the need to adapt constantly to changes in the information society and to boost research and development.
• A social pillar designed to modernise the European social model by investing in human resources and combating social exclusion. The Member States are expected to invest in education and training, and to conduct an active policy for employment, making it easier to move to a knowledge economy.
• An environmental pillar, which was added at the Göteborg European Council meeting in June 2001, draws attention to the fact that economic growth must be decoupled from the use of natural resources.

The mid-term review held in 2005, for which a report was prepared under the guidance of Wim Kok, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, showed that the indicators used in the OMC had caused the objectives to become muddled and that the results achieved had been unconvincing.

For this reason, the Council has approved a new partnership aimed at focusing efforts on the achievement of stronger, lasting growth and the creation of more and better jobs. As far as implementation is concerned, the coordination process has been simplified. The integrated guidelines for growth and employment will henceforth be presented jointly with the guidelines for macroeconomic and microeconomic policies, over a three-year period. They serve as a basis both for the Community Lisbon Programme and for the National Reform Programmes. This simplification in programming makes it possible to monitor implementation more closely by using one single progress report.

More link: Towards a green and innovative econom