Greece on course for Lisbon
Greece is doing fairly well in its efforts to meet the European Union targets of progress and development until 2010, known as the «Lisbon criteria,» according to a report submitted yesterday by the Council of Lisbon and Allianz insurance company. The report, «The European Development and the Employment Observatory: Success Indices in the Economy of Knowledge,» monitors the progress of the 14 biggest economies toward meeting those targets. It has found Greece ranks seventh among them with 1.23 points, against an average of 1.05. Topping the chart is Finland with 1.69 points, followed by the Republic of Ireland, Denmark and Sweden. On the other side, Italy lies lowest on the chart with just 0.66 points. Italy, along with Austria and France, are the only countries that currently appear unable to meet their Lisbon targets. The main obstacle in this course is seen as the uncertainty in the global economy, and, as the chief economist of Allianz, whose signature the report bears, suggests, «the worst response to global unrest would be to abandon the policies that have brought success to Europe just as these are beginning to bear fruit.» The analysis of the partial indices of Greece shows that the high scoring the country has earned is due to the positive course of the «economic development» and «productive development» indices, recording scores of 1.38 points and 2.87 points respectively (against an EU-15 average of 0.52 and 1.31 points).
