If at first you don't succeed

Having failed to implement the Lisbon Strategy "aimed at making the European Union (EU) the most competitive economy in the world and achieving full employment by 2010" the European Council, which ended the Spanish Presidency (no, it was not ever going to be an IGC) has adopted another ten-year plan: "EUROPE 2020", a new Jobs and Growth Strategy for Europe. Makes one feel all warm and cosy, particularly those among us who will be getting jobs in Brussels et al to create grids, strategies and frameworks for this plan. For sure as eggs is eggs, this will not create either jobs or growth anywhere that it matters, which is usually known as the economy.

This European Council, its participants and those who create the agenda as well as write the documents in the full knowledge that directives and regulations will follow, continues to assume that jobs, growth, economic development are all created by instructions from above. Undoubtedly, they will have those score boards as well. They did with the Lisbon Strategy. If you get more than three ticks you have achieved .... precisely nothing in real terms but a great deal as far as the euro-bureaucracy is concerned.

You have to scroll some way down to find the important paragraphs, though:

Financial Stability, economic governance and stability of financial system

European Council agreed on the need to enhance economic governance, in particular as regards budgetary and broader macroeconomic surveillance, and set forth the necessary rules to be implemented and the orientations to be met in so doing.

The necessary reforms to restore the soundness and stability of the European financial system is one more element highlighted by the Council to be completed urgently. The resilience and transparency of the banking sector must be ensured, an the he EU must demonstrate its determination to bring about a safer, sounder, more transparent and more responsible financial system.

The aim is, as we have been predicting all this time, to use this crisis as a beneficial one for the furtherance of the project. However, it is looking a little more doubtful as to whether they will succeed.