Europe 2020 Strategy

The European Union is well known for setting various targets, plans and strategies. In the field of economic policies, it has introduced a tradition of preparing ten-year complex economic strategies. Its current economic action and development plan - the Europe 2020 Strategy - has defined five measurable Headline Targets to enhance economic growth and allowed the Member States to set their own national numerical values for these targets. This book analyses quality of this target setting process. First, it tries to figure out whether the targets have been set better than in the preceding Lisbon Strategy. Second, it examines whether the National Targets have been defined clearly and unequivocally. Third and the most important, based on original empirical analysis, the book evaluates whether the National Targets have been determined reasonably with respect to general capacities of individual European economies. The main results reveal that some learning from the Lisbon Strategy has been made, but the quality of the National Targets is insufficient and should be increased.