” “"The Lisbon strategy is working" and "is creating growth and employment": José Manuel Barroso, president of the EU Commission, illustrates to the EU Parliament the package of actions that the Executive will submit to the EU Council on Friday 14th December. The goal is to "support economy to face the challenges of globalisation", that will be the underlying theme of the summit of the 27 member states. According to the EU Executive, the implemented reforms are "working", even if "the response of some member states has been more energetic than others’, and in the last twelve months some signs of reform-induced fatigue have been noticed". In the next run of the strategy, that will be outlined before March 2008, "Europe shall speed up its EU-wide and nationwide reforms to alleviate the impact of global disruption and the rise in the price of basic commodities". This opinion is confirmed by the EU Commission: "Growth within the 27 member states should stop at 2.9% in 2007. Over the last two years nearly 6.5 million jobs have been created" and another 5 million should be added between 2008 and 2009". National budget deficits have been reduced on average from 2.5% of the GDP in 2005 to 1.1% in 2007. (continued)” “
