European Union Strategies: Emphasis on Competitiveness
The evaluation of strategies aimed at improving the competitiveness of the European Union (EU) is given. Lisbon Strategy of 2000-2010 was to be the most ambitious project of the EU. However, in the first five years it became clear that the aims can not be attained. To ensure macroeconomic, financial and budget stability of the EU the strategy “Europe 2020” was developed. The attention in the article is focused on its new institutional framework. Evaluation of the intermediate results of “Europe 2020” strategy in the intervening period since 2010 give grounds to state that once again there is a risk of failure of the aims of this strategy. It is emphasised that, despite the efforts of the European Commission aimed at implementing the strategies adopted, differences still remain in the competitiveness between EU Member States. It is noted that the imbalance in the competitiveness of the “old” and “new” EU Member States was one of the triggers of the recent debt crisis in the Eurozone. New factors are also revealed, such as deleveraging in the banking sector, extremely low inflation (which complicates debt repayments of households and governments, as well as foreign loans), the lack of credit to businesses in some EU countries.