EU plan slights new members

5th March 2010

© PD The EU hopes the EU2020 strategy will lift 20 million out of poverty Share:

The European Commission announced Thursday a new strategic plan to guide EU policy for the next decade.

The EU2020 strategy met with mixed reactions in Poland, with many fearing its focus on innovation and research will lead to cuts in funding to poorer "new" member states.

The new strategy is the successor to the Lisbon strategy adopted in 2000, which largely remains unfulfilled ten years after being implemented An EC report on the earlier plan notes its goals for the EU to reach 70 percent employment and devote 3 percent of GDP to R&D have not been reached.

The EU2020 strategy officially sets three goals for Europe’s road ahead, smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. These targets are meant to help Europe achieve a knowledge-based and innovative economy that is greener and more competitive.

Although one of the plan’s goals is to lift 20 million Europeans out of poverty, the main paths suggested for moving the EU forward is a more efficient and mobile labour force and an increase in the number of college graduates. Neither of these is a priority for Poland, which has seen more than a million emigrants leave for Ireland and the UK alone and has witnessed an explosion in private colleges over the last decade.

Relatively little space is devoted to smoothing out the differences between rich and poor regions in the EU, which some fear could signal future cuts in funds for infrastructure and other investments in the newer EU members.

“It is difficult to find a place for Poland in this strategy because it’s written for the needs of the older member states,” an unnamed EC official told Polish Radio.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk met with his Hungarian counterpart Gordon Bajnai on Tuesday to discuss the EU’s new strategy. The meeting followed talks between members of the so-called Visegrad Group – Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia – to work out a common stand on the plan.

Secretary of State Michal Boni told PAP news service that the government’s efforts to shape the document have yielded results. He noted that the current version improves on earlier drafts in balancing the interests of various EU member states and offers a "good starting points for discussion".

“Political integration appears several times and plays a key role in section 3.2, 2, which talks about economic, territorial, and social integration," he explained.

EU Commissioner for Regional Policy Danuta Hubner praised the document, but said it should go further in addressing the needs of new members. “We can only assure citizens a good future if we see to it that Europe works together to realize its objectives,” she wrote in Reczpospolita.

“We have to invest in the centre of growth, in its locomotive, but also in its ties with lagging regions,” she added.