REGIONAL COOPERATION AND ECONOMIC INTEGRATION

PART I:
as composed suggestions for the next steps of enlargement. The Strategy also highlights
that enlargement is one of the most effective means of the European Union, which helps
extending its activities in terms of peace, security, freedom, democracy and preventing
conflicts. It is stressed that the attractive power of the EU in the candidate and potential
candidate countries is her contribution to stability as well as stimulation to reforms. It is of
vital importance that the accession perspectives should be visible and reliable and member
countries should support enlargement.
However, in terms of sustainable development the relations between the Lisbon Strategy
reform, the monitoring system of social-economic development and the enlargement raise
some important questions.
1. In case Western Europe’s falling behind does not decrease Are the objectives of the
Lisbon Strategy based on sufficiently up-to-date premises The question comes up: is it
the execution of the strategy, the fragmentation of the internal markets, the underlying
principles or the basic approach that lies behind the problem
2. Should the opportunities to utilise Europe’s outstanding competitive advantages in
certain areas and its international position be given up due to the grave impact of the
current crisis on Europe Is it necessary and possible to elaborate a new strategy based on
a new approach
3. Are the set of indicators of the Lisbon Strategy or the most complex database of the
European Committee and Eurostat (SDI – Sustainable Development Indicators) or the
annually updated OECD Factbook (Economic, Environmental a Social Statistics) sufficient
to evaluate the candidate countries
Our responses, discussed in detail below are as follows.
1. There is an unequivocal step backwards in the area of strategic thinking and the focus is
on economic crisis management and stability.
2. Europe has different social models but all are linked to the common history of the
continent. This inheritance should be maintained in terms of sustainability and hence
Europe has a major role in the reshaping of the global system. The Post-Lisbon Strategy
should be based on a wide interpretation of sustainability including economic, social and
environmental criteria.
3. In order to carry out our analysis it is not sufficient to only use the OECD and EU
comparisons. Thus we are selecting the comparative database from the sets of indicators of
some 150 international country rankings.
1. The fall of strategic thinking
The announcement of the Lisbon Strategy and its priorities reflected the international
and European euphoria of the year 2000. Nevertheless, it was a breakthrough in terms
of handling together the activities related to the economic, social, technological and
legal harmonisation, instead of each area being treated separately as it had been before.
This remained the basis of the renewed strategies too (Zádor, 2005, 2005a). The boom
at the beginning of the year and the favourable state of European macro economics raised
58