European leaders pledged yet again last week to radically speed up Europe's sluggish growth drive, seeking to keep alive plans to become the world's most competitive economy by the end of the decade.
But as EU chiefs reiterated their commitment to shaping up hidebound economies at a two-day summit, terror fears and widespread resistance to reform made that goal appear as distant as ever.
"Every year, European leaders meet in Brussels to say `time is running out' and every year, they go home with a bag of windy declarations to show for it," said Paul Hofheinz, president of the Lisbon Council, a coalition of civil-society pressure groups pushing for economic reform in the EU.
"Can't they see that their lack of resolve means that Europe risks becoming a social and economic museum?" he said.
The heads of government on Friday vowed to step up their efforts to become the most competitive economy in the world by 2010, a goal set at an EU summit in Lisbon four years ago.
But apart from urging continued reform and setting up a high-level panel to assess its progress next year, there were few signs of the Brussels summit putting words into action.
Eurochambres, the association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said in a recent report that the gap between Europe's objectives and reality was widening.
"The Lisbon agenda will be reduced to a fairy tale if fundamental reforms do not take place now," said its president, Christoph Leitl. "A further delay will mean failure. Europe needs to recognize competitiveness as a key principle by deeds and not by words alone."
Leitl said that the growth rate in European productivity had been falling since the mid-1990s and the EU's aim to catch up with the US was at a "standstill."
Compounding those problems now is the risk of new terror attacks after the Madrid atrocity of March 11. Its potential impact on stock markets, investment and consumer spending pose daunting threats to the tentative recovery.
Morgan Stanley economist Joa-chim Fels said after the attacks in Spain that while a number of European economic indicators were looking up, that trend was vulnerable to the impact of terrorism.
"The sad events of Madrid could change our assessment if investors shunned risky assets or if business and consumer confidence dropped sharply across the eurozone," he said.
The summit set out a series of declarations on the so-called Lisbon agenda including calls for sound budgets, social welfare overhauls, reforms to rigid labor markets, further deregulation and more spending on research.
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