Barroso’s crystal balls
EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET
Mankind has always wanted to try to see ahead and forecast future events. Over the course of history we have always consulted witches, magicians and other astrologists who can tell us what life has in store for us.
And not just in the Middle Ages; even in modern times the help of these soothsayers is called upon at times. During the Ronald Reagan administration major decisions were only taken on days that Mrs Reagan’s LA-based astrologist deemed favourable to a fortuitous outcome. And of course there are still those among us who predict that the end of the world will come this year, on 20 December.
Those that predict, after carefully reading tea leaves and Mayan calendars, that the world should have ended on 6 October 1967 have a problem, as we have already passed that date, in the same way that others that predict the end of the world in the year 3561, say, may meet with some indifference, as that year seems rather far away; so best to forecast that the world ends in 30 or 40 years (that is if the forecaster himself is around 50 to 60 years old). The same applies to economic forecasts. It is better to pick an end-date that is not too far away, but also not so close that immediately people see that the goals are unlikely to be met. Bes,t therefore, to pick a goal that is just on or beyond the horizon of your political career. Say in ten years for instance.
You may remember that at the start of this century, the EU had a very bold project called the Lisbon Agenda. The goal of this agenda was to make the EU the world's most competitive economy by the year 2010. You may have noticed that it did not quite work out that way. Of course, the first economic global crisis of 2008, and the subsequent euro crisis did not help either. What the Lisbon Agenda, and these two crises did do though, was put competitiveness on everyone's radar. Unfortunately, not all that is on your radar will land peacefully on your airport. Some blips just happily continue to fly to other - broader - horizons, whereas other blips have the nasty habit of adhering to the laws of Newton and plummet to earth, not necessarily in a controlled way and not necessarily on an airport. This is what happened, unfortunately, with the Lisbon Agenda. By the way, the Lisbon Agenda is not be confused with the Lisbon Treaty. That was a totally different initiative that has alas also not quite lived up to expectations.
But 2010 is history now. And therefore the EU has embarked on another road to victory, called Europe 2020. It did leave out the too bold assumptions of the first programme by trying to be the best at everything, but nevertheless its subheading is ‘A strategy for jobs and growths’. And nobody can deny that if we need anything it is jobs and growth. Perhaps our austerity driven emergency budgets at the moment are counterproductive to the entire idea of the grand Europe 2020 scheme, but once we are out of the woods we are going gung-ho for jobs and growth.
And this time I assure it will succeed. And there is a very simple reason for that. The key to the success can be found in the target date the EU has chosen for its programme: 2020. Apart from it being a nice round figure, even a form of a mathematical alliteration, it also the definition of really perfect eye-sight. So perfect even that the expression goes that the only 2020 vision is hindsight. So to have chosen a programme that will give at its end-date perfect vision in hindsight, must mean the programme will be a huge success, surely.
Although of course there are those that like to point to Mark Twain's famous remark: "Forecasts are always difficult, especially those about the future.” And, thus, perhaps the results achieved by 2020 may not be exactly those that the courageous initiators of this scheme had in mind at the outset. But that in itself is already an assumption on my part, that I would be able to foretell the outcome, which of course I cannot
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