EU Enlargement: Opportunities or Threats for NESIS Benjamin Adesola PhD INFORMER S.A. 1 Rue du Fort Dumoulin, L-1425 Luxembourg Tel: Fax: Workshop on Productivity, Competitiveness & The New Information Economy Business, Systemic and Measurement Issues ISTAT Istituto Nazionale di Statistica Rome, Italy, 26 – 27 June 2003

Presentation Outline 1.The Challenges of EU enlargement 2.EU Policies and NESIS Project 3.Indicators of Productivity & Competitiveness 4. Opportunities or Threats for NESIS Indicators 5. Questions and Answers – Lessons Learnt Oppotunities or Threats for NESIS

Enlargement is the most ambitious project that the EU is undertaking. It is the reunification of continental Europe and its people in a constitutional framework, that encourages them to work together in peace and stability. For the people of Central and Easter Europe, European Union symbolises the values to which the have longed to return for more than a generation during the period of Iron Curtain and the Cold War. The prospect of EU membership has helped to make irreversible their choices of pluralist democracy and market economy, and encouraged them on the path to reform. For the people of the present EU, stability and democracy in Central and Easter Europe have yielded great benefits, not only in terms of security, but also of prosperity: increase in trade. These benefits will be consolidated and augmented, for both old and new members, when Enlargement take place in 2004, provided that the EU meets the challenges which it presently Faces. Why Enlargement? Wim Kok Report to the European Commission Former Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands Enlarging the European Union: Achievements and Challenges. European University Institute, Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies

The Challenges of EU Enlargement Oppotunities or Threats for NESIS Accession Negotiations Copenhagen European Council December acceding countries 75 million new citizens 25 member states 450 million citizens What are the challenges? Political Legal Economic Social Technological Environmental Cyprus Czeck Republic Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Malta Poland Slovak Republic Slovenia Who are the accession countries? Where are these challenges? What do we know about them? What are their nature, structures and forms? Who is involved, when and where? How do we overcome these challenges? How do we conceptualise and reconceptualise?

EU Policies and NESIS Project Oppotunities or Threats for NESIS The Presidency Conclusion at the Lisbon EU Summit “to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustaining economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion” European Commission and European Council 2000,2001 NESIS activities are organised around four Policy and conceptual pillars that emerged from the Lisbon Strategy Pillar I macroeconomics stability and environmental sustainability (WP5.1) Pillar II productivity and competitiveness in the new economy (WP 5.2 – 5.5) Pillar III human investment in the new information economy (5.6) Pillar IV social inclusion in the new information economy (5.7 – 5.9)

NESIS Indicators of Productivity & Competitiveness Oppotunities or Threats for NESIS WP 5.2 Review of indicators and méthodologies on productivity and territorial competitiveness through network management in the new information economy. WP 5.3 Policy guidelines in relation to WP 5.2 What are the indicators of productivity and competitiveness? In what context and for what purposes? What are the indicators and what are the methodologies for acquiring them? When, by whom and how do we develop methodologies to derive indicators? What policies and what are sustainable indicators, in what context and for what purpose? What are the indicators of PA’s policies e.g. to citizens, enterprise and processes? What methodologies are required to derive policy indicators? How do we develop methodologies to derive indicators?

NESIS Indicators of Productivity & Competitiveness Oppotunities or Threats for NESIS WP 5.4 The impact of ICT usage on business organisation and business processes. WP 5.5 Indicators on enterprise dynamics within the new economy. What are the indicators of business organisation? What are the indicators of business processes? What methodologies are required? How do we develop methodologies to derive indicators? What are indicators on enterprise dynamics within the new economy? Where are indicators on enterprise dynamics within the new economy? What methodologies are required to derive indicators on enterprise dynamics? How do we develop methodologies to derive indicators?

Oppotunities or Threats for NESIS The Candidate countries, Statistical Indicators and Sustainability in New Europe ‘There is no denying the political importance of involving these countries in EU activities or of questioning either their interest in or ability to producing statistics of various kinds. There is no disputing the need to prepare them for seemless integration into the Union in due course. ’ But This is an extract from NESIS Contract for Accompanying Measure in a KB Society Annex 1 – Description of Work NESIS IST Most candidate economies are undergoing a dual transition, in institutional structure from planned to market economy and in industrial structure from traditional pattern of Economic activities (sectorally and technologically), to much newer structure. Why is it important to involve Candidate countries in NESIS?

Oppotunities or Threats for NESIS Objectives of a NESIS WP addressing Candidate countries 1.Assessing the applicability of the indicators being developed and evaluated in the EU to Candidate economies. 2.Investigate the relationship between existing indicators of transition to market economy status and functioning. For example: a. Is the speed of transition in one sense related to speed of transition in the other? How and Why? b. Is the relationship mediated through variables, such as current macroeconomic performance, degree of openness or geographical location? c. Is this in turn related to indicators of macroeconomic growth and stability, of environmental and social performance, and of regional, sectoral and enterprise competitiveness and productivity in the Candidate economies? Given the changes taking place in the new economy it is inevitable that the revision of concepts and measures of efficient market functioning would lead to reappraisal of standard indicators of transition to market economy status. The Candidate countries, Statistical Indicators and Sustainability Where are the Indicators? What are the Indicators? How are the Indicators derived?

Opportunities for NESIS Indicators Oppotunities or Threats for NESIS Threats for NESIS Indicators The Candidate countries, Statistical Indicators and Sustainability Example questions constitute a large, complex, discrete and separate body of issues but with the potential to dilute NESIS current trajectory in relation to the matured EU market economies. However the enlargement is here and now, with the benefit of sustainable Development to NESIS Indicators in the New Europe. 1.Framework for assessing applicability of indicators developed and evaluated through NESIS four pillars in Candicate economies. 2.Create awareness and standards for developing best practice indicators in the New Europe. 3.Indicators of Productivity and Competitiveness in the New Europe and more. 4.Development of working group towards sustainable development. 1. Risk in the adoption of measurements prescribed at local level 2. Lack of sustainability in existing indicators for New Europe The Heat in on

Questions and Discussion How long have we got? What are the risk? What is the roadmap? Lessons Learnt Oppotunities or Threats for NESIS