A senior European Commission official has said Germany, France and larger member states are going to have to pull their weight in order for the new ‘Europe 2020’ strategy to work. The plan, launched on 3 March by Commission President José Manuel Barroso, sets five headline targets for EU countries to meet on employment, education, research, climate change and poverty reduction. But while Greece is currently playing on the minds of EU policy makers, Gerard De Graaf, head of the aptly-named ‘Strategic Objective Prosperity’ unit in the Commission’s Secretariat-General, says that the more prosperous member states will have to shoulder a large part of the burden of reform over the next decade. “We can’t have a strategy that imposes obligations on some countries but not on others,” he said at an event organised by Eurochambres, on 11 March. “That is a question the bigger member states will have to answer. The success of the strategy lies in Berlin, Paris, the UK, Rome and Madrid.”

Germany was throwing its weight around in talks between EU ambassadors, on 11 March, who were to ink a compromise text for leaders to agree at the European Council, on 25 March. While it still has to go through finance ministers and foreign ministers before then, it looks increasingly unlikely that member states will sign up to any numbers at the summit. Most controversial are the 25% poverty reduction goal and the aim to spend 3% of gross domestic product on research and development. The Commission had wanted to agree the five EU-level targets in March so talks could begin on national targets, which will be broken down according to the abilities of each member state.

There will be no punishment for not meeting the targets, despite repeated and continuing calls from the European Parliament to do so, but De Graaf says the new tools available under the Lisbon Treaty should motivate countries to meet their aims. “We believe that member states will do these reforms because they are convinced that they are in their interest, and if they don’t do the reforms they will fall behind.”

Under Article 121(4) of the treaty, the Commission can address policy warnings and recommendations to errant member states, effectively naming and shaming countries that persistently flout EU rules. In February, Greece was pulled up for overstepping the deficit and debt limits set out in the Stability and Growth Pact, but the warnings can also be used to police progress in other policy areas - the employment target, for example. However, De Graaf says the EU executive will not be abusing the new power. “It is not the kind of thing you want to receive. We want to use this sparingly. It’s the threat that produces the effect, not its use.” He says the Commission will also be drawing up a scoreboard as a way of keeping tabs on countries that are lagging behind, something he says has been very effective in the internal market area.