Public Governance in Member States

Abstract

The purpose in this chapter is to help set the scene for our analysis of the governance processes developed by the European Union to deliver the Europe 2020 Strategy. It specifically sets out to build a deeper understanding of the variations in the strategic capabilities of the national governments of Member States. As we noted in the first chapter, the strategy document drafted by the European Commission in 2010 was very clear that there were important differences between Member States and very clear that this should be reflected in the delivery of the Europe 2020 Strategy by national governments. It was proposed to reflect this in varying the national targets under the Union-wide strategy. Presumably the success of the multi-level approach of the Europe 2020 Strategy would depend on the strategic capabilities of national governments and parliaments and on their cooperation with the European Union institutions. Nevertheless, there was no explicit assessment of the strategic capabilities of Member States in the document, nor of their readiness and fitness to be integrated into a European Union-wide effort to deliver the Europe 2020 Strategy. This omission is not explained in the document, and it may be that such assessments were made but not included in the strategy document. Alternatively, perhaps the Commission assumed that it was not needed and that strategic thinking and planning would also be undertaken at national level using the Europe 2020 Strategy as a framework. If so, perhaps it was further assumed there would be a great deal of involvement of national level governments and parliaments in strategic thinking and planning.