Council of the
European Union
Brussels, 1 February 2016
(OR. en)
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NOTE
From:
Presidency
To:
The High Level Working Group on Competitiveness and Growth
Subject:
Competitiveness mainstreaming
- Competitiveness check-up including the Competitivenss Scoreboard
Delegations will find in Annex a Note by the Presidency in view of the meeting of the High Level
Working Group on Competitiveness and Growth on 8 February 2016 on the development of the
competitiveness check-up scoreboard.
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link to page 2
ANNEX
HLG paper
Development of the competitiveness check-up scoreboard
The Competitiveness Council was given a broad mandate by the March 2003 European Council to
“(…) actively assume its horizontal role of enhancing competitiveness and growth (…), reviewing
on a regular basis both horizontal and sectoral issues.”
The Luxembourg Presidency took several steps to follow up on this mandate. One of the main new
working methods introduced by the Luxembourg Presidency was the ‘competitiveness check-up’,
consisting of a presentation by the Commission and a debate by Ministers on key indicators
regarding competitiveness and market integration. The aim was to help the Competitiveness
Council to react in a timely manner to important issues concerning the real economy and to have a
substantive and fruitful discussion at ministerial level on policy challenges for Europe’s
competitiveness. The Netherlands Presidency wants to continue on this path and further improve the
‘competitiveness check-up’ as suggested by the Luxembourg Presidency in its paper of 16
November
1. The discussion between Ministers needs to remain as open and spontaneous as
possible; nevertheless, more structured and thorough preparation for the discussion could help
Ministers to comprehend better the underlying analysis. This is essential to focus the discussion as
much as possible on the policy challenges and options.
An important element of these preparations could be a competitiveness scoreboard. Austria has
made valuable suggestions to that end in a non-paper on indicators for a competitiveness scoreboard
as presented in the Competitiveness Council of 30 November. A broad and non-exhaustive list of
indicators was proposed and consequently, the development of such a scoreboard was included in
the work programme of the HLG. A scoreboard would provide for an objective and robust
monitoring of the European competitiveness and foundation for discussion. As is stated in the
Austrian non-paper, the scoreboard should be consistent with existing initiatives such as the
European Competitiveness Report, the Innovation Union Scoreboard, the Macroeconomic
Imbalance Procedure and in particular, the current work of the Commission on competitiveness
indicators. Indicators used in the competitiveness scoreboard could build on the indicators used in
these tools.
1 Doc. 13989/15
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Additionally, to keep the discussion focused on specific policy challenges, a thematic approach is
necessary. This thematic approach requires that the scoreboard is accompanied by a more thematic
(quantitative and qualitative) analysis by the Commission.
The HLG of 8 February aims to deliberate on the competitiveness scoreboard and the development
of the check-up. To this end Austria will present its ideas as reflected in its non-paper. The
Commission will also elaborate on their work on competitiveness indicators. The outcome of the
debate could be used to prepare the debate on the competitiveness check-up by Ministers in the
Competitiveness Council of 29 February and could already be used by the Commission to prepare
the check-up presented in this Council.
Discussion topics for the HLG
HLG members are asked to respond to the following questions for discussion.
Questions for the HLG:
i)
How could the development of a competitiveness scoreboard help the Competitiveness
Council to have fruitful discussions in the context of the competitiveness check-up? How
can we exploit synergies with other work streams in the development of indicators, such as
the current work of the Commission on competitiveness indicators? What principles should
we address when developing such indicators? How could the HLG support the Council in
having a more focussed discussion (e.g. through a thematic approach)?
ii) How could spontaneous and interactive Council discussions be facilitated while helping
delegations to prepare for discussion? How could a preparatory note by the Commission for
the HLG improve the quality of the discussion in the Council?
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