In response to the request from Mr Barroso, President of the European Commission and Ms Wallström, Vice-President of the European Commission, that the EESC and the ESCs and similar organisations support stakeholder involvement at both the planning and implementation stages of the Lisbon reforms, the European Economic and Social Committee has established the Lisbon Strategy Observatory.
At the inaugural meeting of the Lisbon Strategy Observatory on 22nd of September 2008 in Brussels, the representative of the Bulgarian Industrial Association presented the organisation’s opinion about the last cycle of the Lisbon Strategy and the challenges before Bulgaria.
In order to prepare the exploratory opinion the Lisbon Strategy Observatory will cooperate with the European Council Presidency and call upon policy makers, academia as well as civil society at large to analyse possible strategies to improve governance of the Strategy based on better-evaluated, better-differentiated and better-targeted objectives, as indicated in the Summary of Principal Conclusions of the Laurent Cohen-Tanugi report on the Lisbon Strategy prepared for the French Presidency.
