In 2000 the EU leaders adopted the Lisbon Strategy aimed at transforming the EU by 2010 into “the world’s most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy.” The Lisbon strategy was a total failure and its targets, including employment and economic growth, were not met. However, Brussels carried on – setting up a new target date for 2020. The new EU's strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, the so-called Europe 2020, has already turned out to be another failure.
Unsurprisingly, according to recent research, the new EU targets on employment, research and innovation, education and poverty reduction will not be met.
Research and innovation, as the European Commission said, have been placed at the heart of the Europe 2020 strategy. Yet, according to the 2012 Innovation Union Scoreboard, recently released by the Maastricht Economic and Social Research and Training Centre on Innovation and Technology, the EU as a whole continues to lag behind the United States, Japan and South Korea.
The EU has set the target to lift at least 20 million people from poverty and social exclusion in the context of the Europe 2020 strategy. However, according to a Eurostat’s publication release on 8 February, “In 2010 as in 2009, around 23 % of the European population (115.5 million people) were considered to be at risk of poverty or social exclusion (AROPE), according to the definition adopted for the Europe 2020 strategy.”
Moreover, according to a joint EU Council-Commission report, entitled "Education and Training in a smart, sustainable and inclusive Europe", the EU is also likely to miss its 2020 targets to reduce early school leaving and increase graduate education. The Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council adopted this report on 10 February. It is important to recall that an average of more than 20 % of young people in the EU are unemployed.
David Cameron must give serious consideration to the repatriation of employment and social laws from Brussels, as indicated in his CPS speech in 2005, otherwise the UK will be trapped within the EU economic and employment policies under the new 2020 strategy, which do not work. As Bill Cash said “The EU‘s economic underperformance compared to the rest of the world is to be attributed to excessive EU regulation.”
In the meantime, the EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Laszlo Andor, said last week, at a conference organised by the FPC, the European Commission and TUC , "I therefore think it is clear that repatriating social policy competence is a non-starter — legally, socially and politically,". According to the EUobserver, he pointed out that the treaty would have to be changed so that Britain could be exempted from social and employment laws. However, as Bill Cash pointed out in his pamphlet “It’s the EU, Stupid”, “Using the formula-notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, would enable us to re-grow our economy and repatriate powers.” This formula must be applied to Westminster legislation, “thereby overriding unnecessary and damaging European laws by passing legislation at Westminster “Notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972”.
David Cameron should not only concentrate on repatriation, as Bill Cash said “repatriation as properly defined runs in parallel with renegotiation of the Treaties” and “Because of the framework of the British national interests they are both important.” David Cameron must, therefore, define the terms of a fundamental renegotiation in the relationship between the UK and the EU.
