What’s Wrong With Lisbon?

In a democracy, a policy institution acquires and retains legitimacy either through the quality of its decision procedures or because it is able to deliver what the citizens expect. In the recent referendums, the French and Dutch citizens were asked to vote on a new set of rules and procedures. But rather than to give their opinion on the machinery, they chose to express their dissatisfaction with the output. Together with peace, prosperity remains the Union’s premier public good. From the Single market to the euro, many ambitious projects have been undertaken in the name of it. Expectations have been created, only to be disappointed a few years later – a sure recipe for frustration. The referendums thus emphasise that Europe’s poor economic performance deeply undermines the very legitimacy of the EU – a point rightly emphasised by Prime Minister Tony Blair in a speech to the European Parliament on the eve of the 2005 British presidency. The need for a growth agenda is thus more pressing than ever. This Spring, the EU announced a revamped version of its growth programme, the so-called Lisbon strategy. Initially launched in 2000, when Europe started to realise that in spite of a favourable environment it had bee