Re-thinking Lisbon” “

“Without well-informed reflection and constructive input by all the interested parties including the Church and Christian circles, there is a danger than an equilibrium between the three pillars [of the Lisbon Strategy] will not be observed and that unfettered economic ambition will become the central driving force in EU policies”, warns the General Secretary of the Commission of the episcopates of the European Community (COMECE), NOËL TREANOR . The Lisbon Strategy, the outcome of the extraordinary European Council of Ministers held in the Portuguese capital in March 2000, is aimed at turning Europe by 2010 into “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, able to achieve sustainable economic growth, new jobs and greater social cohesion”. In the editorial of the April number of “Europe infos”, monthly of COMECE and the Catholic Office of Information and Initiative for Europe (OCIPE), of which he is director, Treanor warns – at the halfway point of the Lisbon Strategy – of the risks of the objective of social cohesion being penalized and of economic growth being pursued to its detriment. Immigration and high unemployment are other issues discussed in the review. REMAINING TRUE TO ITSELF. “From its inception in 2000, the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy – says Treanor in his editorial – were ambitious and necessary for the development of the EU economically, socially and environmentally. The unimpressive achievements of the Strategy thus far has spawned widespread criticism and a demand for its radical re-thinking”. “Achievable goals are central to the promotion of growth and competition in the Union. They need to be pursued with vigour. Coherence between Europe’s social and economic pillars is central to this pursuit. The social dimension of the Strategy cannot be left to languish until the economic pillar delivers results”. Hence “the need to re-organize the European Social model so as to ensure that is it strengthened; this is not to be done at the expense of future generations or the environment”. Referring to the document drawn up by COMECE in recent weeks, “Strengthening the European Social Model – Ideas for a renewed Lisbon Strategy of the European Union”, Treanor underlines “the key role played by the family in supporting, educating and caring for its citizens”. The family must be recognized “as an intrinsic component of a vibrant economy”. If it is to remain true to itself, Treanor concludes, Europe must avoid the risk that “unfettered economic ambition become the central driving force in EU policies”. NOT JUST HUMAN CAPITAL. “Viewing migrants predominantly as available human capital can lead to fatal misjudgements regarding their integration, which can only be detrimental to society as a whole”, declares HENRIK LESAAR. After the European Council held in March 2005, and pending an action plan on legal immigration that the Commission should present by December this year and implement during the course of 2006, Lesaar points out that the new legislation on legal migration “is intended to avoid bottlenecks affecting particular qualifications and disparities between supply and demand in important segments of the labour market”. The new concept of legal worker migration, continues Lesaar, “proceeds from the assumption that legal immigration can benefit the economic development of our society. The approach of this concept is therefore constructive in principles by virtue of differing from the concepts that view migration as a potential threat to our security”. Yet it “is aimed at particularly well qualified migrants and extensively ignores less-qualified workers. This neglects a large part of economically relevant legal migration from the very outset”. The approach, moreover, does not consider “irregular migrants”, and thus “tends to perceive migration as being merely an economic phenomenon. This gives rise to the danger of people coming [to the EU] to work but not having their dignity respected and their human rights being violated”. Lesaar thus urges that “the churches and church organizations must draw attention to these shortcomings of the approach of the Lisbon Agenda in the domain of workers migration” and underline “the positive contribution made by migration”. EUROPE AND UNEMPLOYMENT. According to Eurostat, average unemployment in the EU remains stable at 8.8% (the same figure registered in 2002), but the disparities from one country to another are enormous. In the “old 15-member Europe”, emphasises CLARA COFFEY, the figures range from minimum rates in Ireland (4.3%) and Luxembourg (4.4%) to significantly higher levels: 7.8% in Italy and 10.3% in Spain. But “the situation is now being further complicated with the unemployment afflicting ‘the new 10-member Europe'”; here the rate is on average “double that of the 15-member Europe”, rising in Poland to 18.2%. “The differences between the industries and structures for employment” of the Fifteen and the Ten “have an effect of distortion on the phenomenon as a whole – observes Coffey – and the structural long-term unemployment registered in these latter countries is worrying”: so too is “youth unemployment, which now stands at 18.7% in the enlarged Europe”. These figures, according to Coffey, “are not promising”; the objective of full employment in the EU fixed by the European Council in Barcelona in 2002 is still very far away and Europe more than ever has a need for structural economic reform”.