EU downbeat on its goal of trying to catch US

The European Commission today published a very downbeat assessment on its highly ambitious goal to become "the most competitive, knowledge-based economy in the World by 2010" - the so-called Lisbon strategy.

The report concedes, "the Union cannot catch up on the United States as our per capita GDP is 72 percent of our American partner's".

Presenting the report, Commission President Romano Prodi confirmed that the EU would miss its targets for the half-way stage of the process (w...