Growth and Jobs Strategy

When the Lisbon Strategy ended in 2010, a decade after its introduction, and Europe was confronted with the biggest economic crisis since World War II, European decision-makers decided to develop an exit strategy that was meant to help guide the Union out of the crisis. It was in this context that the Europe 2020 Strategy was devised in order to create more jobs and lead to smart, sustainable and inclusive economic growth.

European targets in five areas were discussed, which the Member States of the European Union have promised to achieve by 2020:

• strive to reach an employment rate of 75% for women and men between the ages of 20 and 64, including by means of a greater participation of young people, the elderly and semi- and unskilled workers, and through the better integration of legal immigrants 
• improve the conditions for research & development, more specifically with the aim of increasing the combined public and private investments in this sector to 3% of GDP 
• reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by 20% as compared to the levels in 1990; increase the share of renewable energy sources to 20% of the ultimate energy consumption levels; and work towards improving energy efficiency by 20% 
• increasing educational levels, especially through the aim towards reducing school drop-out rates to below 10%, and to increase the amount of people in the age group 30-34 years who have completed third level or similar education to at least 40% 
• promote social inclusion, particularly through the reduction of poverty, by aiming to provide at least 20 million people with a solution reducing their exposure to the risk of poverty and social exclusion.

These European targets must be translated into ambitious, national targets whose sum must equal the figures above. In order to achieve these targets, this strategy is founded on seven so-called flagship initiatives that address more thoroughly the concrete actions that must be taken at both the European and national levels. These seven initiatives are called:

• Digital agenda for Europe
• Innovation Union 
• Youth on the move 
• Resource-efficient Europe 
• An industrial policy for the globalisation era 
• An agenda for new skills and jobs 
• European platform against poverty

The experience gained under the Lisbon Strategy also makes it clear that more work must be done in order to have a better administrative structure for the strategy. One of the new elements included here is the creation of the so-called European semester. The semester has both a European and a national component. The European component starts annually in early January with the Commission’s acceptance of the “Annual Growth Survey“. Based on this report and the assessment thereof by the Council, the annual European Council in March provides the Member States with a “strategic orientation“. This strategic orientation also gives the start signal for the national component of this semester. Based on this orientation, as well as the integrated guidelines, the Member States must draw up and submit two separate but intrinsically linked documents by the end of April each year: a National Reform Programme and a Stability/Convergence Programme. After analysing these documents, the Commission will make country-specific recommendations and formulate points for attention for the Member States, which are approved no later than June of each year by the Council of the EU. This ends the European semester, and each Member State begins to draw up its own annual budget for the following year, based on the recommendations received from Europe.