IEEP Analysis Briefing: Strategic EU Affairs

On 16 June the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the proposed Europe 2020 Strategy, the successor to the 2000 Lisbon Strategy, which aimed to turn the EU into ‘the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010’. In its resolution the Parliament considers the environmental aspects of the proposed strategy as generally too weak. It therefore calls for the adoption of binding targets not included in the Commission proposal such as a 20 per cent reduction target for energy consumption, a resource efficiency improvement target and measurable targets geared towards halting the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services and restoring them by 2020. Although the European Parliament calls for resource efficiency to be a priority throughout the strategy, it only calls for a resource efficiency target and fails to call for a target on limiting resource use.