Development and implementation of the EU grand strategies: sociological, policy, and regional considerations of Agenda 2030

Table 1: Abbreviations

Table 2: The EU Cohesion policies in data

Table 3: The EU membership

Table 4: EU Region development level

Table 5: GDP per capita as indicator of development

Table 6: Shares of GDP in industry among selected European countries

Table 7: Employed in industry; percentage of total employed

Table 8: Innovation Scoreboard Comparison

Table 9: The Comparative Table of 3O’S Strategy and EIS

Table 10: Roadmap of EU policy documents

1. Introduction

The subject of this book are the challenging and exciting issues of the implementation of the European Union’s grand strategies, with a particular interest in the implementation of the current Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals. We see this as particularly exciting, both as a research topic and as a policy issue. This is not only due to the almost proverbial difficulties in implementing the joint strategy in a union of 27 very diverse countries, a union where the key institutions in spite of decades-long institutional development still lack the power – and the budget – relatively equivalent to those of the nation states. The really interesting fact is that Agenda 2030, unlike the Lisbon strategy and Europe 2020 is not a grand strategy developed for the European Union, but a document developed and accepted by the United Nations, albeit with a very significant impact of the European Union. In this process the European Union has recognised the fact that many of the major issues that the EU is facing are global in their nature and should be tackled not only by the European Union, but also beyond its borders, on a global scale. Some of the global issues with a profound impact on the European Union are the climate change, illegal migration and, not least, war in Ukraine, which is impacting the European and global energy market, food supplies, and perhaps also leading to reorganisation of global geopolitical alliances, as well as the flows of energy, food, industrial components etc. Some of the challenges have such a strong short-term impact, that already accepted strategic priorities and decisions are being questioned and re-examined, for example the decision of Germany to close nuclear power plants and scale down the coal-powered power plants.

The implementation of the EU grand strategies is a phenomenon that has already been the subject of intense interest by both researchers and policymaker (Makarovič, Šušteršič, and Rončević 2014; Haverland and Romeijn 2007; Borghetto and Franchino 2010). The most researched is the Lisbon strategy, which concluded in 2010. However, a significant number of publications on the impact of Europe 2020 already exists (Stec and Grzebyk 2018; Makarovič, Šušteršič, and Rončević 2014). This research points to significant discrepancies in implementation among the Member States. Some of the divisions are between Northern and Western Member States on one hand and Eastern and Southern ones on the other (Wüst and Rogge 2022; Kasprzyk and Wojnar 2021), but others may be discovered, and the reasons for them could be unveiled in the future research.

←13 | 14→One possible approach in this research is the Cultural Political Economy (CPE) approach, based on evolutionary mechanisms of variation, selection, and retention of dominant discourses (Jessop 2004; 2010; Jessop and Oosterlynck 2008), as well as on mechanisms of selectivities (Sum and Jessop 2013). This has already been used in research on implementation of Europe 2020 (B. Rončević and Besednjak Valič 2022). It was also the theoretical foundation of Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “Strategic Observatory for Europe 2030” (SOE2030), the result of which is this volume.

This is the first effort to scratch the surface of the implementation of The Agenda 2030 with CPE, although more systematic research is yet to follow, especially on the basis of data collected during the SOE2030.

Chapter 2 addresses the following:

To improve the economic well-being of regions in the European Union, the EU sets the regional policy also referred to as Cohesion Policy. It intends to avoid regional disparities by boosting regions, that are lacking behind. The aim of this chapter is to enlighten the changing policy throughout history and how it developed into the present. We will be considering, how the priorities changed, how it is supported by the budget and which mechanisms are available for funding. Researching the current Cohesion Policy shows a quite complex approach not fully transparent to an ordinary EU citizen. While reading the EU Strategy, which sets six Commission priorities for 2019–2024, the regional aspect is not clear and unambiguous. Namely, it is not the EU Strategy, that sets the regional development course but rather the regional development supports the EU Strategy selected indicators.

Chapter 3 addresses the following:

It was a Lisbon treaty to determine the primary goal of the EU to become: “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion”. Since the Lisbon Treaty, the Europe 2020 was adopted, and nowadays Agenda 2030 is working towards the same goal. However, since the time of the Lisbon Treaty, several global events and processes have taken place – from the global crisis in 2008 to Covid-19 pandemics in 2020 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Nowadays, the New Industrial Strategy is only a part of the Agenda 2030. Still, it follows the aim to deliver the twin transitions: make the EU industry more competitive globally and enhance Europe’s strategic autonomy. The present contributions will discuss the narratives and statuses surrounding individual groups of EU countries with respect to reaching the goals of the New industry Strategy. Special attention will be posed to questions of technology ←14 | 15→transfer and protection of intellectual property as two of the tools to contribute toward the goals of the New Industry Strategy.