STOCKHOLM, June 2 (Reuters) - The European Union has failed in its effort to become the world's most innovative region under the so-called Lisbon Agenda, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said on Tuesday.
The Lisbon Agenda was launched almost 10 years ago as a plan to cut red tape, promote growth and jobs, and overhaul welfare and healthcare to deal with an ageing population.
"Even if progress has been made it must be said that the Lisbon Agenda, with only a year remaining before it is to be evaluated, has been a failure," he said in a joint article with his finance minister, Anders Borg. The leader of the Nordic country, which is due to take over the revolving EU presidency on July 1, said the strategy to make Europe the most dynamic and competitive region by 2010 should be rebooted.
"We mean that a review and new start to EU's Lisbon strategy is necessary. This must be initiated this autumn and remain a prioritised issue during the five-year period starting with the European parliament elections on June 7," Reinfeldt said.
In the signed article in Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, the ministers said sustainable public finances should be made a cornerstone of a new strategy and that labour market policy needed to be reformulated.
"A first step is to see that the unemployment problem is larger than the current official figures of close to 10 percent unemployment," the ministers said. (Editing by Robert Woodward)