From Lisbon to Brussels

摘要

NEXT week,European Union leaders gather in Brussels for a summit on the economy.Their meeting marks the halfway point in their supposed strategy,agreed in Lisbon in March 2000,to turn Europe into the world's most competitive economy by 2010.It is an objective they are manifestly failing to achieve-even though the new European Commission president,Jose Manuel Barroso,coincidentally a Portuguese,has made a relaunch of the Lisbon agenda,to ensure it is not "decaffeinated" as he puts it,the centrepiece of his presidency.