Employers' union call on Competitiveness Council to act as 'standard bearer' for Lisbon strategy
UNICE, the union of industrial and employers' confederations of Europe, has called on the Competitiveness Council to assume a higher profile role as the champion of European competitiveness, and has criticised what it describes as the 'relaxed approach' adopted by the Council so far. In a statement issued on 26 May, UNICE highlights the important function that the Competitiveness Council has in addressing Europe's economic problems, and urges its members to 'actively assume [the] role of enhancing competitiveness and growth'. 'The Competitiveness Council must become a standard bearer for the vision set out in the Lisbon strategy, to make Europe the most competitive economy by 2010,' the statement reads. Specifically, UNICE calls on the Competitiveness Council to develop its stature and authority in relation to other Councils, and states that: 'It must be able to give evaluations that contradict the opinion of other Council formations, if this is needed, for example to stop legislative measures that could hamper European competitiveness.' The Competitiveness Council was created during the Danish Presidency of the EU in the second half of 2002, and the first chair of the Council, Bendt Bendtsen, described its role as the engine in the achievement of the Lisbon goal.