The Europe 2020 Strategy

Launched in March 2010 by the European Commission, the Europe 2020 strategy aims to achieve "smart, sustainable, and inclusive" growth. The engines for this growth are - Knowledge and innovation - Greener and more efficient use of resources - Higher employment combined with social and territorial cohesion This CEPS report takes an in-depth look at this major initiative and finds that the strategy itself needs to be revised in several important respects. First, the authors believe, R&D spending per se is not the best indicator of innovativeness; a new measure, intangible capital, would be more appropriate. Second, while increasing the share of the workforce with a university degree is important for competitiveness and employment, it is the quality of that education that matters more than the quantity. The study also finds that employment targets would be better reached by a skills upgrade among women who have the least education. Concerning climate change, the authors conclude that unless the EU increases the level of its ambition and adds a carbon import tariff, reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions are likely to have a negligible impact on global climate change. Finally and more generally, the report argues that the 2020 strategy should acknowledge the importance of institutional efficiency at the national level.

This book attempts to answer the question: "How can Europe 2020, the EU's new strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, lead to a stronger social EU with less poverty and greater social cohesion?" Examined in depth are achieving the EU's ambitious social objectives to lift at least 20 million people out of the risk of poverty and exclusion by 2020 and the Union's four other mutually reinforcing targets. A key objective of the book is to take a critical look at and draw lessons from the past, 2000-2010 Lisbon Strategy. Another important objective is to explore the format and role of EU coordination and cooperation in the social field in the new EU governance framework, in a context marked by slow recovery after the global economic crisis. Finally, the book also makes proposals for the further reinforcement of this coordination and cooperation and for the improvement of the different instruments available at EU, national and sub-national levels.

This study explores the Europe 2020 strategy and the role of European political entrepreneurship in debating, shaping and implementing this strategy within the EU. The book sets out to explore the content, conditions and consequences of Europe 2020 by analysing the plan for a future prosperous EU economy. The main focus is on European political entrepreneurship and how the strategy has been debated and decided on, and then implemented from a governance perspective with multiple European actors.

Recoge: Europe 2020 in a broader policy perspective - 1. Employment - 2. R&D and innovation - 3. Climate change and energy - 4. Education - 5. Poverty and social exclusion - Country profiles - Abbreviations and acronyms.

The focus of this book is on the fifteen-member European Union but its coverage extends to many other bodies which form part of today's Europe, such as the Council of Europe, the European Economic Area and Western European Union.

The main parameters of the EU budget are decided upon every seven years when the MFF (Multi-annual Financial Framework) is negotiated. Before the end of 2016, EU institutions will undertake a mid-term review of the EU’s 2014-2020. This comes in a context of severe turbulences for the EU project: a difficult economic and social situation in most member states, huge migration pressures and new security threats stemming from an unstable environment, and the Britain’s decision to leave the EU. At the same time, EU countries need to face up to climate change and engineer a smooth transition towards an innovation-based sustainable economic model. The EU’s very survival depends on the ability to respond to these multiple challenges in the next few years. Making a smarter and more strategic use of the €960 billion MFF has become a necessity. Can the EU Spend Better? argues that the scope for a substantial revision of the MFF is limited in the short-term. At most, pressing issues such as terrorism and the deteriorated social situation will lead to greater flexibility in the use of existing envelopes. However, the debate starting in 2017 over the next MFF provides with the opportunity of more substantial shifts in four main directions: more investment- and performance-oriented spending; the expansion of climate conditionality to all spending areas; more targeted redistributive spending matched with greater reform conditionality; a more outward-looking budget.