Glossary:EU 2020 Strategy
The EU 2020 Strategy was a strategy for the European Union to develop as a smarter, knowledge-based, greener economy, growing fast and sustainably, creating high levels of employment and social progress. It was designed as the successor to the Lisbon Strategy, which was the reform strategy for the EU for the 2000-2010 decade.
As in the Lisbon process, a set of structural indicators for monitoring the progress made in achieving the objectives of the EU 2020 strategy are used. Eurostat compiled these indicators which are used within the annual monitoring exercise.
The current draft of EU 2020 defines as main objectives:
- creating value by basing growth on knowledge;
- empowering people in inclusive societies
- creating a competitive, connected and greener economy.
These goals are reflected in the set of indicators, selected and structured to illustrate the achievements in these areas. The set also contains some basic data on the overall economic performance of the EU. For several of the indicators, target values are determined in line with policy objectives. For the Lisbon strategy targets were only used in a very limited number of cases.
EU 2020 also puts emphasis on comparing EU performance internationally. The current list of non-EU countries is further extended to include additional countries, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), if data are available.