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Abstract
For almost a decade, the EU has pursued sustainable development not with one but with two overarching strategies: the so-called Lisbon Strategy and sustainable development strategies. While the Lisbon Strategy was a genuinely European policy response to global economic and social pressures, which was superseded by the ‘Europe 2020’ strategy in 2010, sustainable development strategies are ongoing cyclical processes that aim to better coordinate and integrate economic, social and, in particular, environmental policies at both the EU and Member State levels. This paper explores the horizontal governance linkages that existed between the two strategies. It first contrasts the Council rhetoric, emphasizing the complementarity of the two strategies with their different histories and governance arrangements. This paper then shows that the Council rhetoric of complementarity never materialized in the everyday governance routines of the two strategies, and provides three explanations for this finding. Based on these findings, this paper finally provides a brief outlook discussion on how to proceed with the governance of sustainable development in Europe.
Acknowledgements
We thank Elke Pirgmaier for writing her master's thesis on Lisbon NRPs and SDSs under the supervision of Reinhard Steurer. Her findings contributed essentially to this paper.
Notes
1. The linkages between Lisbon and sustainable development strategies were discussed at the 3rd Workshop of the European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN) on ‘The Future of the EU SDS and its Interface with the Lisbon Process’ in Brussels, 19 November 2008 (see http://www.sd-network.eu/?k=ESDN%20workshops&s=workshop%20documentation&year=2008a) and the ESDN Conference 2009 on ‘Options and Opportunities for the future EU Sustainable Development Strategy’ in Prague, 17–19 June 2009 (see http://www.sd-network.eu/?k=ESDN%20conferences&year=2009). Both authors were/are closely affiliated with the ESDN: from 2006 to 2008, Reinhard Steurer was the co-ordinator of the ESDN support office. In July 2008, Gerald Berger succeeded him in this function.
2. The mixed record of the Lisbon Strategy is also acknowledged by the European Commission (Citation2010a, 2010b), and by politicians such as the Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and his finance minister Anders Borg who have criticized it as ‘a failure’ (http://www.euractiv.com/en/priorities/sweden-admits-lisbon-agenda-failure/article-182797).
7. For an overview, see http://www.sd-network.eu/?k=country%20profiles.
8. For the national progress reports 2007, see http://ec.europa.eu/sustainable/news/index_en.htm#report_2007_en.
9. This judgement is based on several years of first-hand experience in co-ordinating the European Sustainable Development Network/ESDN. For details, see note 1.
10. See note 1.
11. This judgement is based on several personal communications with Lisbon and sustainable development strategy co-ordinators, and on some of the interviews conducted by Pirgmaier (Citation2008).
12. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&plugin=1&language=en&pcode=tsieb020.
13. The Commission, for example, planned to promote ‘the rapid take-up of “green products” ’ by proposing ‘reduced VAT rates for green products and services, aimed at improving in particular energy efficiency of buildings’ (European Commission Citation2008: 15).
14. This topic was discussed at the ESDN Conference in Prague in June 2009. For a documentation of a telephone survey and the working group discussions, see http://www.sd-network.eu/?k=ESDN%20conferences&s=home&year=2009.