Where next for the Lisbon Agenda? 

The Lisbon Agenda, launched in 2000, was supposed to make the EU "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion" by 2010, the authors recall.

But "time is running out" for this to happen, the authors warn, stating that "the risk now is that the Union will reach the end of 2010 without a visionary and credible framework for modernising its economies further".

"Some preparatory work has been done for a future Lisbon Agenda, but no-one is providing decisive leadership," Martens and Zuleeg declare.

At the end of the 1990s, the driving ambition behind the development of the Lisbon Agenda was for Europe to "directly compete with America" and "come out on top within the space of a decade". In 2005, "a simplified Lisbon Agenda was relaunched, focusing on stronger, lasting growth and more and better jobs," Martens and Zuleeg explain.

The simplified Lisbon Agenda rests on three pillars:

• An 'economic pillar' to facilitate the transition to a competitive, dynamic, knowledge-based economy through more research and development (R&D), greater innovation, and creating a more dynamic business environment;
• a 'social pillar' aimed at modernising the European Social Model by investing in human resources and combating social exclusion, and;
• an 'environmental pillar' aimed at greening the economy.

"To respond effectively to the EU's future challenges, the Lisbon Agenda must encompass a much wider range of issues and indicators as well as focusing more strongly on some of those already included," suggest the authors.

"Newly-prominent issues, such as climate change and financial-sector reform, must be central in the new framework for structural change," they write.

They also call for EU policies and the bloc's budget to be assessed by an independent agency, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development "to determine how far they foster structural reform".

EU leaders "must focus on how to create future growth and jobs within the next EU framework, agree a common approach and be frank with citizens about the long-term need to create sustainable jobs and growth instead of resorting to short-term populist rhetoric," they conclude.