Dies ist eine HTML Version eines Anhanges der Informationsfreiheitsanfrage 'Protokoll Hochrangige Gruppe 13.10.2015'.


 
 
 
 

Council of the 
 
 

 European Union 
   
 
Brussels, 1 February 2016 
(OR. en) 
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COMPET 21 

 
 
ETS 2 
MI 50 
 
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 
November1. 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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