The implementation of the Strategy Europe 2020 objectives in European Union countries: the concept analysis and statistical evaluation

International competitiveness between the United States and the EU has been a subject of research for many years. The competition between these unions in terms of implementing the so-called new economy, based on high technologies, is particularly interesting.

At the end of the 90s it became clear for the European leaders that the economic condition of the EU is relatively smaller than the dynamically developing economy of the United States. In 2000 the average EU’s GDP reached 70% value of this indicator in the United States and it was lower than in the beginning of the 70s. The diagnosis made at the beginning of 2000 by the OECD (2003, 2004) and by the experts from the European Commission clearly stated that the phenomenon of American “new economy” and its accelerated development in IT sector were the results of high innovations which characterise the American economy. Whereas the Union’s economy was described as less dynamic with high unemployment rate, the monopolisation of network industries and low flexibility of labour markets and with low diffusion of advanced technologies. In view of such situation, during the summit in Lisbon in March 2000, the European Council passed a 10-year strategy which aim was to transform the EU into the most dynamic and competitive economy in the world based on knowledge, ability to maintain sustainable economic growth, create more better places of employment and maintain the social cohesion. The stimulation of innovation activities and research and development activities (R&D) (Grimm 2011; Ilbert and Petit 2009) were declared to be the main measures employed to realise this strategic goal.

The Lisbon Strategy, from the substantive perspective, was not a new initiative, as before there had been attempts to introduce various processes in order to recover and reorganise the functioning of the EU. However, its versatility and realisation of comprehensive and integrated attitude to the socio-economic and environmental problems by retaining the principle of subsidiary was innovative (Dearden 2008; Makarovic et al. 2014). The Lisbon Strategy objective was to create the EU’s economy based on knowledge by Lisbon Strategy (2002):

The key priorities of the Lisbon Strategy come down to the following issues: innovation, enterprise, synergy (cooperation) and competitiveness (Steurer and Hametner 2013). The Lisbon Strategy’s objectives were very ambitious, but it is a well-known fact that its important goals were not accomplished and Europe 2020 is the latest EU’s economic strategy replacing the Lisbon Strategy. The influence of the global financial crisis on the economic development and objectives and instruments supporting economic development were mainly taken into consideration. The flaws in the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, redefinition of development challenges, objectives and priorities as well as the evaluation of “technical” aspects of the implementation such as financing, monitoring or social communication were among other issues being at the very heart of the implemented changes in the strategy (The Europe 2020 competitiveness report 2012).

The questions arise whether the ideas included in this new strategy are possible to complete in the prescribed time and whether it should be drawn up and changed. In certain documents (The Europe 2020 competitiveness report 2012, 2014) it is indicated that though the Lisbon Strategy did not meet many objectives its effect on implementing EU development policy should not be evaluated negatively. On the basis of the analysis of these documents, the authors listed its major successes as follows:

It is the progress in the above mentioned areas that will determine the EU’s development potential in the forthcoming years (OECD 2004). In this context, the Strategy 2020 will attempt to continue the coordinated mechanism of managing the EU’s development policy in diverse conditions—among other things due to the different levels of socio-economic development and thus varied development priorities—of the national interests of many member states (Brauers et al. 2012). The challenges that the EU met in 2000 by passing the Lisbon Strategy have become even more urgent as the realisation of the new development strategy is taking place next to the emerging demographic problems (the ageing of Europe’s population is putting at risk the long-term stability of public finances in these countries) which are accompanied by the increasing competition from the rapidly growing markets in Asia (especially India and China) and other countries (e.g. Brazil) as well as the large-scale technological progress (particularly in the ICT area) in the world. If we want to answer the hereinabove questions, it is clear that the modification of strategic regulations and drawing up the new priorities are the essential conditions to increase the competitiveness of EU’s economy (Steurer et al. 2010).

The Europe 2020 has become a part of EU’s functioning procedures; it appears that the central idea of the strategy is to plan development that contains various activity projects.

Europe 2020 is the EU’s ten-year growth strategy puts forward three mutually reinforcing priorities (http://​ec.​europa.​eu/​europe2020/​index_​en.​htm):

These three mutually reinforcing priorities should help the EU and the Member States deliver high levels of employment, productivity and social cohesion The strategy further identifies seven flagship initiatives the EU should take to boost growth and jobs (European Commission 2010):

This strategy should provide a road map for economic recovery and guarantee the EU a strong position in international relations. It is essential that five headline targets are met and have been agreed for the whole EU (European commission 2010; Ruser and Anheier 2014):

In order to raise effectiveness in implementing the strategy, the individual member states can support themselves by creating their own policies, such as: action plans and defining goals and short-term, mid-term and long-term actions; preparing qualitative and quantitative measures allowing to make comparisons between the individual member states, between an individual country and the whole Europe or the United States, or any other highly developed country; translate strategic objectives and schedules into national action plans; periodic reviews of the strategy implementation in terms of realisation its objectives and exchanging experiences (Barder et al. 2013; Booth 2013; Ruser and Anheier 2014).

The EU will not accomplish its goals if the individual member states do not pursue them. The Union is a community of great economic potential but with many problems to overcome. It is composed of 28 countries with different levels of socio-economic development. It not only has to deal with the distance between Europe and the United States, but also with the distance existing between “the old” (EU15) and the new member states.

In the literature there are no precise guidelines, indicators or methods that could be employed to evaluate the progress in implementing the Europe 2020 goals. Ravallion (2011) states that the analyst is free to choose, largely unconstrained by economic or other theories intended to inform measurement practice.

Many authors (Cornescu and Adam 2014; Steurer and Hametner 2013) who are dealing with this issues declare that people voluntarily or involuntarily, are always using indicators when they analyse, forecast and so on. Its importance is given by the fact that indicators are describing a topic of interest, reducing information overload for data users and provides the necessary information for decision-making. The power of the indicators it represents also a weak point because when it is intend to describe a wider topic of interest, the selection of one or more representative indicators is difficult, there is a loss of information risk or manipulation of obtained data. They maintain that, generally speaking, indicators have three main functions. First, they reduce the number of measurements necessary to give a description of a situation (OECD 2003). As such, they are indispensable for measuring progress towards policy objectives (Dalal-Clayton and Krikhaar 2007) and for evaluating the effectiveness of policies (European Commission 2005). Second, indicators simplify the communication of positive and negative developments to politicians, administrators and the public (OECD 2003). Both of these functions rely on the main feature of indicators, i.e. to summarize complexity into a manageable amount of meaningful information that can be understood and interpreted easily. Thirdly, indicators can provide crucial guidance for policy-making (Bossel 1999; UNCSD 2001), in particular regarding the better horizontal integration of policies across sectors, and vertical integration between different levels of government.

There are no indicators that are universally accepted, backed by compelling theory, rigorous in data collection and analysis and influential in policy (Quental et al. 2011). As Bell and Morse (2014) hold, based upon the work of Hezri (2004, 2005) with experience gained over many years working in sustainable development projects spanning many countries, it is possible to conceive a number of possible influences on the use of indicators. They claim that „even if the indicator is very technical and difficult to estimate, if the need is strong enough then it will continue to exist if demand is high. Those demanding the indicators may not necessarily know how it is calculated or its limitations, but as long as the indicator helps them to encapsulate complexity for someone else to understand then it will be of use”.

As some authors point out (Keirstead and Leach 2008) the indicators employed in various analyses should be widely used for systematic performance monitoring, early warning, target setting and other purposes.

Taking into consideration the functions and features that the indicators should fulfil, also concerning the substance and availability of data, the Authors resolved to employ the indicators shared by the EU and published by the Eurostat in order to determine the synthetic measure in meeting Europe 2020 by the member states.

These are the main indicators monitoring the realisation of the Strategy among which we can distinguish the stimulants (S), for which high values are desirable, and destimulants (D), for which low values are recommended. The main indicators have been marked with symbols from X1 to X10.

In the next stage of research the values of the synthetic measure for EU countries in 2009–2014 were calculated.

Table 1 illustrates calculated values of the synthetic measure for EU countries in 2009–2014.

In 2009–2014, the values of synthetic measure calculated for EU countries generally increase which indicate their progress in meeting Europe 2020. Fluctuations of the synthetic measure for some countries can be observed in 2010 and 2011 which are a result of the global economic crisis from previous years. There are also some differences between the countries in terms of the synthetic measure values. This shows different levels of the Europe 2020 realisation among the individual member states.

The analysis of the arithmetic mean calculated on the basis of the value of the synthetic measure in 2009–2014 (Table 2) presents interesting conclusions concerning the progress in meeting Europe 2020 by the individual member states.

In 2010–2014 there is a gradual increase of an “average” level of progress in meeting Europe 2020 by EU countries. The decrease in an average value of the synthetic measure in 2010 depicts the unfavourable changes posed by the global crisis. However, the parameter increases gradually in the following years which indicates the progress made by EU countries connected with the implementation of the Strategy. The differentiation of EU countries measured by the coefficient of variance is low and remains within the rate of 19–20%. In all years, the asymmetry coefficient is positive and its value decreases. In the slight majority of EU countries, the level of implementation of the analysed development programme is below the average.

In order to answer which EU countries are on the similar level of the implementation of the Europe 2020, a distribution diagram no. 5 is used and the results of the countries’ classification are presented in the Table 3 and in the Fig. 1.

High levels of implementation of the Strategy Europe 2020 was, in 2014, showed by Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Austria. These countries can be proposed as the leaders of this development idea. Most countries belong to the group of medium–high (11 countries) and medium–low levels (7 countries).

The group of medium–high level comprises five countries of the “old states” and six countries which acceded to the Union in 2004.

In the group of medium–low level there are more countries which acceded to the Union in 2004. Croatia, which is the latest member state, is also included in this group.

Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Malta, Spain and Greece are the countries which belong to the group of the lowest level of the implementation of the Strategy Europe 2020. This group includes the countries with the low level of socio-economic development as well as the countries facing serious economic problems.

To show changes in the levels of the strategy implementation by EU countries, the values of general synthetic measures in two critical years, i.e. in 2009 and 2014 were compared, and on their basis EU countries were placed in the ranking (Table 4).

It turned out that in 2014 compared with 2009, 12 EU countries improved their positions (Latvia the most—moved five places upwards, Lithuania and Romania—four places upwards), in six countries the situation did not change, whereas 10 countries fall down in the ranks in terms of the value of the synthetic measure (Greece the most—seven places downwards and Cyprus six places downwards). Invariability of place or its fall in one or two places does not matter for countries which achieve good and very good results in meeting the Strategy Europe 2020 (Sweden, Finland). It is crucial, however, for countries facing serious problems with implementation of the EU development programme. Without their greater involvement as well as significant support, also financial from the EU, these countries may not carry out the objectives of the Strategy Europe 2020.