Backing for Europe 2020

The leaders of the national governments gave their backing to a strategy to boost employment and economic growth in the EU over the next ten years.

They approved targets for boosting employment, spending on research and development, and cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.

The targets are contained in the Europe 2020 strategy, a document prepared by the European Commission with the aim of encouraging “smart, sustainable, inclusive growth” to help the EU recover from the financial and economic crises.

But the leaders resisted calls by the European Commission to set targets for education and for cutting the number of people in poverty.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso welcomed the endorsement of Europe 2020 by the national leaders, saying that the EU had “set an agenda for a smart, sustainable and green economy”.

Individual targets

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Based on the targets set for the EU, a set of further targets will be prepared for each country, to be put to the national leaders’ next summit meeting in June.

“Our goal is to have not only overall targets, but [also] national targets consistent with European targets,” Barroso said.

Barroso played down the rejection of the education and poverty targets, which he said needed more work.

Some national governments had been defensive about what they saw as possible EU interference in national policymaking.

Barroso admitted that some countries had “concerns on competences” but pointed out that leaders had agreed unanimously that fighting poverty and social inclusion was a “shared objective”. “By definition, everyone is against poverty,” he said.

Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, who chaired the summit, said that a poverty target was “part and parcel of the European model”, but that there were statistical problems in agreeing a common definition of poverty.

The Commission had proposed cutting the number of people living in poverty by 20 million by 2020, and cutting the number of early school-leavers to under 10% and ensuring that 40% of young people have a university degree or diploma.

German opposition

Germany has been one of the countries most opposed to the education targets, saying that education is the responsibility of regional governments.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, said that “more discussion” was needed on the education target but that she expected the EU to agree targets in June.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister, said that he was very happy with the conclusions on Europe 2020, but all countries had to take responsibility for implementing it.

The Europe 2020 strategy is a successor to the Lisbon Agenda, agreed in 2000, which aimed to make the EU “the most competitive economy in the world” by 2010.