Poland, after Finland, is European Union’s second most competitive economy, according to a report by the Brussels-based Lisbon Council institute linked with the European Commission:

“In the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the financial crisis escalated dramatically from September 2008, which caused a severe impact on the real economy in the fourth quarter of last year. Although the European Growth and Jobs Monitor cannot yet fully cover the most recent developments in the absence of sufficient hard data, its results nevertheless already reflect a severe downward trend, which will continue. Our overall Lisbon indicator for the group of EU-15 countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) fell in the third quarter of 2008 to 0.84, down from 1.12 in the third quarter of 2007. This means that, taken as a group, EU-15 countries are no longer on track to fulfill the Lisbon targets by 2010, the original deadline of the Lisbon Agenda. However, two countries do stand out – Finland and Poland. For different reasons, both countries were well on target to meet their Lisbon goals, according to the criteria laid out in this study (although recent downward trends in the economy indicate that even they may slip below the fulfillment criteria later this year.). For the second year in a row, Finland tops the league table at no. 1 (although its overall score slipped to 1.34, down from 1.79 last year).

Finland scores particularly well on the human capital sub-indicator (no. 1) and sustainability of public Finances sub-indicator (no. 1) though its performance on the Future-oriented investment sub-indicator (no. 12) leaves room for improvement.

Poland also scores well, due mostly to its strong scores on the Economic Growth sub-indicator (no. 1) and productivity Growth sub-indicator (no. 2), although policymakers have so far been unable to translate this relatively strong performance into the job-market strength one would expect to see among a league-table leader (Poland comes in at no. 13 on the Jobs sub-indicator, well off its Lisbon targets and just barely ahead of league-table laggard Italy).”

Source: European Growth and Jobs Monitor 2009 – read more at:

http://www.lisboncouncil.net/index.php?option=com_publications&task=view&id=19&Itemid=35