In 2001 the European Council adopted the Gothenburg Agenda for sustainable development which emphasised the role of the economic, social and environmental pillars of sustainability and set long-term targets for a sustainable Europe. Renewed efforts for sustainable development in the EU highlight the adoption of better methods of integrated and balanced policymaking and the role of sustainable development as a complement to the Lisbon Strategy.
European Regional Policy instruments such as the Structural Funds have thus become one of the main means to implement the Lisbon agenda for growth and jobs and the Gothenburg agenda for sustainable development.
Together with an international team of experts representing all 27 EU Member States, Nordregio recently completed a DG Regio study to evaluate the potential for the 2007-2013 Regional Policy instruments to contribute to the Lisbon and Gothenburg objectives for growth, jobs and sustainable development. The study was grounded on an examination of the 246 Operational Programmes funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund, as well as national regional policy documents.
The study found that the 2007-2013 Regional Competitiveness and Employment objective and Convergence objective programmes (those with a GDP per capita in PPS of less than 75% of the EU average) retain significant potential to contribute to the Lisbon and Gothenburg goals though such programmes often have the potential to contribute to these goals in rather different ways.
The Cohesion Policy strategies of all the EU Member States do lead to Lisbon and Gothenburg, although each country embarks from a very different starting point depending on their stage of development, the challenges they face; their future potential and the scale of EU programmes relative to national action.
Six "roads"' to Lisbon and Gothenburg have been identified through examination of the strategic priorities and budgets of regional policy programmes as well as socio-economic indicators. These "roads" characterise the broad approaches taken by Member States to align their Cohesion Policy programmes to the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas.
These "roads" are not mutually exclusive, but are rather a guide to highlighting differing emphases in policy terms. As such there may be elements of a number of "roads" in many Member State's programmes. The figure on p. 5 provides further details.
Two overall approaches can be identified:
• The "old" Member States and Regional Competitiveness and Employment regions maintain a strong focus on innovation, knowledge, R&TD, ICT and entrepreneurship through Cohesion Policy. This can be characterised by groups of strategies oriented towards innovation, territorial potential and environmental synergy.
• The "new" Member States and the former Cohesion countries of Greece and Portugal, which have a large number of Convergence programmes, also focus on innovation, knowledge, R&TD, ICT and entrepreneurship. In addition however they put much greater emphasis on infrastructure development and accessi-bility as a route to jobs, growth and sustainable development. This can be characterised with strategies oriented towards growth/jobs and infrastructure, human capacity and cohesion infra-structure.
One salient observation that emerges from an analysis of the different approaches here is that Lisbon may well be the first destination that the overall Cohesion Policy road reaches. Therefore one of the challenges faced by all will be to look for more opportunities to develop projects that can contribute to both Lisbon and Gothenburg. There will be obvious trade-offs here particularly between economic and environmental goals, but there are also opportunities for synergy, particularly as regards improving productivity and promoting innovation.
It is clear that in delivering the Lisbon and Gothenburg agenda objectives of growth, jobs and sustainable development through regional policy instruments, there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution. Rather, there are a number of approaches that are being taken within the same overall direction of travel. This is not surprising; as each Member State starts its policy and programme development from a different place depending on its development history and future potential, this diversity makes sense.
The important thing is that each country's strategy is internally coherent with regional potentials while at the same time contributing to the overall aspirations of the EU.
The GDP indicator corresponds to GDP per capita in Purchasing Power Standards (in 2007) in relation to the European Union (EU-27) average set to equal 100. If the index of a country is higher than 100, this country's level of GDP per capita is higher than the EU average and vice versa (the figures have been rounded); R&D corresponds to Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) percentage of GDP, 2006; and Energy Intensity corresponds to Gross inland consumption of energy measured as total energy consumption (in kilos of oil equivalents) per GDP (in 1000 Euros). (The figures have been rounded). Source: Eurostat, Structural Indicators