§ Mr. BradyTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what his assessment is of whether the EU has made progress towards achieving the Lisbon Agenda aim of making the EU the world's most competitive economy by 2010 in the last two years. [189518]
§ Mr. TimmsThe Treasury published an assessment of the EU's progress towards the Lisbon goals in February 2004, "Advancing Long-term Prosperity: Economic Reform in an Enlarged Europe". That report noted that the EU and the member states had implemented a number of important reforms, but that further action was needed in order to achieve the Lisbon goals by 2010. In September 2004, the Government also published their submission to the High-Level Group headed by Wim Kok and tasked with conducting a mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy. That report described a range of priority areas for reform to deliver a more flexible and outward-looking Europe.
§ Keith VazTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer pursuant to the Statement of 13 September,Official Report, column 1101, on the Lisbon Agenda, if he will list the 102 benchmarks. [189563]
§ Mr. TimmsA full list of the 102 structural indicator benchmarks against which Member States' economic performance can be assessed is available on the Eurostat website (http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/). alongside the most recent available data.
§ Keith VazTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the annual Lisbon Agenda score cards will be introduced. [189572]
§ Mr. TimmsIn its September 2004 report, "Mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy: UK submission to the high-level group", the Government proposed that an annual Lisbon Scorecard, ranking national performance against a core set of headline economic reform indicators should be prepared each year for the 1787W spring European Council. At present, the European Commission compares national economic performance against a range of indicators in its annual report to the spring European Council, highlighting the best and worst three performing member states against individual indicators.