LISBON REVISITED - FINDING A NEW PATH TO EUROPEAN GROWTH
EPC / Accenture
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"An elitist project?
The Lisbon process has not attracted bottom-up support at a grass roots level, and the absence of the press and civil society engagement has resulted in a process that is seen as removed from the citizens for whom it claims to operate. While the project remains owned and managed from the top-down, the serious lack of information surrounding Lisbon will continue to limit the urgency and momentum of the process, and weaken the legitimacy of that ownership. Key stakeholders are not sufficiently involved in the Lisbon process, particularly at the early stages of policy formation, at a European, national and regional level. Learning from the example of the single market programme in terms of managing an effective information campaign would be beneficial. At present Lisbon is at serious risk of being regarded as an elitist project. This is in some respects symptomatic of the wider issue of democratic deficit within the Union and its institutions.
Although Europe is making progress towards the social, economic and environmental objectives set out by Lisbon, it is clear that this is not happening quickly enough. Performance levels vary significantly across Europe and, in some cases, the performance gap is increasing. As a result, the EU is currently not on target to deliver its objectives by 2010, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to the internal and external challenges outlined in previous chapters." (p.42)
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