Het ziet er niet goed uit voor Belgie in de EEG

[Eric Verhulst]

Als Belgie hervormingen moet doorvoeren, dat ze dan volgende richtlijnen niet alleen in hun programma zetten, maar ook eens effectief doorvoeren.

van EurActiv.com :


Member States facing many obstacles on the long road to Lisbon
In short:
While the UK, Ireland and the Nordic countries are well on track, others need to push through urgent reforms to improve their competitiveness. By 2010, current Member States could be outperformed by the new comers.

Brief News:

Not all Member States fare as badly as commonly thought on the road to the Lisbon goal of making the EU the most competitive global economy. A new report by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise emphasises that some countries have achieved a very high performance in several key areas. The study starts from the premise that heavy regulation and high taxation give European companies a disadvantage in global competition and that, as a result, Europe is facing a very serious risk of de-industrialisation.

The report joins other studies in painting a rather gloomy picture of the state of European competitiveness, but acknowledges that there has been progress in some important areas such as the development of a competitive high-tech sector and the liberalisation of key markets including energy.

The UK, Ireland and the Nordic countries are outperforming the US in the fields of high-tech, innovation and labour market reform. However, important differences can be found even here: While Sweden's strength lies in technological renewal and innovation, it is not doing very well on entrepreneurship, an area in which Ireland is the top performer. Equally, the report criticises high tax levels in Sweden and Denmark, while they are low in Ireland and the UK.

The results show that overall, the EU is still lagging behind the US in areas that are considered crucial to long-term growth. In particular, the report stresses that reforms of labour markets and in taxation are holding up progress of many countries, including France and Germany. Moreover, increased investment in research and education, more flexibility within and between companies and entrepreneurship are urgently required.

As for the new Member States, the challenges are numerous. While the relatively high level of education and strong growth rates give raise to optimism, the legacy of old industrial investments, environmental damage and poor public administration could present major obstacles to sustained growth, warns the report. However, it praises the young market economies for taking the Lisbon agenda seriously, and even maintains that they might well outperform the current Member States by 2010.

*Voor Belgie zou het zo kunnen klinken :

While relatively high level of education and WEAK growth rates give raise to PESSIMISM, the legacy of old POLITICAL THINKING, EXTREMELY HIGH LABOUR TAX and poor public administration could present major obstacles to RENEWED growth, warns the report (not to mention the low level of education of our politicians, of which some have been recruited from local pubs).

[Griffin]

Bestaat dat nog, de EEG???

[Raf C]

is dat niet de EGKS geworden???