Last exit to Lisbon

The Lisbon agenda was reborn a year ago with its economic goals prioritised and a new system of governance. Of the three key changes advocated in the Kok report, only National Reform Programmes (NRPs) drawn up by the member states made it off the drawing board. The proposals to provide appropriate EU funding to support the Lisbon goals, and “name and shame” poor performing member states were rejected. The driving force of Lisbon 2 is thus national “ownership” of the reforms. Taking evidence of stakeholder involvement we have developed a 12- point scale in an attempt to measure how far the NRPs have been taken to heart in individual countries. In practice, the outcome is mixed at best. There is no explicit methodology behind the evaluation of the NRPs by the Commission. Also, even though the rationale for coordination of reform is strongest for countries in a currency union, Lisbon 2 lacks an explicit euro area dimension.