The European Commission was set Wednesday to propose a new 10-year economic strategy for the European Union, aimed at reviving growth after modest gains since 2000 were wiped out by the global financial crisis.
The document - dubbed Europe 2020 - is meant to replace the so- called Lisbon strategy, a 10-year economic blueprint adopted in 2000 that failed to transform the EU into "the world's most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy" by 2010, dpa reported.
Europe 2020 is said to contain specific aims, such as raising the EU employment rate from 69 per cent to 75 per cent and lifting research and development spending from 1.9 per cent to 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) - one of the targets on which the Lisbon strategy failed to deliver.
The final version of the plan - due to be unveiled in Brussels by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso - was also set to reaffirm the EU's climate change commitments.
The bloc pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 - but is ready to raise the cut to 30 per cent if other major powers make comparable commitments.
Some EU governments - with Italy and Poland leading the pack - believe the 30 per cent offer should be dropped after it failed to entice the US and China to raise their game at the Copenhagen climate change talks last December. But the commission has decided to stick to it.
The EU executive is also set to push for increased investments in information technologies, liberalization of energy markets, cutting red tape and cross-border barriers, as well as proposing new education and poverty-reduction initiatives.
But the central problem - key to the Lisbon strategy's failure - is that the commission has few tools at its disposal to make member states stick to those targets - leaving grandiose ambitions exposed as little more than empty posturing.
Europe 2020 calls for EU member states to exercise much tighter supervision of one another's economic plans - including, potentially, offering extra funding to states which make the most effort to improve their performance.
But it rules out sanctions against member states which miss their goals - something those states reject.
EU leaders are expected to debate the strategy at a summit this month and finalize it in June.