"I think that the EU with the Lisbon agenda has put the right emphasis on growth and employment"
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Merkel’s praise lands with the careful calibration of a leader who knows every noun in Brussels has a constituency attached. “I think” is not hesitation so much as diplomatic insulation: a way to signal support without surrendering sovereignty or locking Germany into promises it may later police. The subject isn’t “Europe,” or even “integration,” but the EU “with the Lisbon agenda” - a technocratic frame that shrinks politics into policy architecture. It’s an endorsement of a roadmap, not a romance.
The Lisbon Agenda (launched in 2000) was the EU’s big bid to make itself “the most competitive” knowledge economy, pairing market liberalization with social cohesion. By the mid-2000s, it was already criticized as overambitious and under-delivered, rebooted to focus on measurable outputs: jobs, productivity, growth. Merkel’s line aligns with that rebrand. She’s not cheering a grand federal project; she’s backing the “right emphasis,” code for fiscal seriousness, labor-market reform, and performance metrics - the language of modern European governance where ideology is smuggled in as management.
The subtext is a message aimed at two audiences. To EU partners: Germany is on board with an agenda that rewards discipline and competitiveness. To domestic voters: Europe matters insofar as it pays off in employment and growth, not abstract unity. Coming from a statesman shaped by coalition politics and economic orthodoxy, the sentence sells Europe as an instrument - legitimate when it delivers.
The Lisbon Agenda (launched in 2000) was the EU’s big bid to make itself “the most competitive” knowledge economy, pairing market liberalization with social cohesion. By the mid-2000s, it was already criticized as overambitious and under-delivered, rebooted to focus on measurable outputs: jobs, productivity, growth. Merkel’s line aligns with that rebrand. She’s not cheering a grand federal project; she’s backing the “right emphasis,” code for fiscal seriousness, labor-market reform, and performance metrics - the language of modern European governance where ideology is smuggled in as management.
The subtext is a message aimed at two audiences. To EU partners: Germany is on board with an agenda that rewards discipline and competitiveness. To domestic voters: Europe matters insofar as it pays off in employment and growth, not abstract unity. Coming from a statesman shaped by coalition politics and economic orthodoxy, the sentence sells Europe as an instrument - legitimate when it delivers.
Quote Details
| Topic | Vision & Strategy |
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