WEF meets in Dublin

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday May 15, 2003 12:11 by mafalda

20-21 October

European Competitiveness Summit 2003: "From Rhetoric to to Action" Dublin, Ireland, 20-21 October The WEF is an organisation of the 1.000 most powerfull companies of the world.

The WEF is an organisation of the 1.000 most powerfull companies of the world. Every year they held their annual meetimg in Davos and a number of smaler, regional meetings.

Their summit regarding europe was held in Salzburg for the last seven years, after only two years of protest the bigheads decided to leave the town an move on to dublin.

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taken from www.weforum.org - official site of the WEF:

European Competitiveness Summit 2003

"From Rhetoric to to Action"
Dublin, Ireland, 20-21 October

Under the patronage of Erkki Liikanen, EU Commissioner, Enterprise and Information Society, European Commission, Brussels

In 2000, the EU adopted the Lisbon Strategy, a series of policies aimed at making Europe the "most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010." While policy-makers continue to pledge their unconditional support of this goal, Europe seems to have gone off track.

The European Competitiveness Summit will serve as a timely update on the Lisbon goals. It will identify strategies and policies that will help Europe regain its economic momentum. Held under the auspices of the Irish government, the Summit will attract:

400 business leaders;
select heads of goverment;
ministers of finance, economy, industry, innovation and labour;
key media leaders;
academia and civil society representatives.

The conclusions and recommendations of the Summit will be fed into the Irish EU Presidency in the first half of 2004, in particular the March EU Summit of Heads of State and Government and the EU Competitiveness Council Meetings.

The Lisbon Review, in its second edition, will again serve as the intellectual backbone of the Summit. The review is an analytical ranking of the progress EU member states, as well as accession countries, have made with respect to the Lisbon strategy. The first edition can be downloaded at www.weforum.org/lisbonreview.

In addition, we will convene, under the umbrella of our Bridging Europe Initiative, a group of outstanding entrepreneurs from over 20 European countries. The European Commission has highlighted entrepreneurship as a key engine for economic growth and innovation. It will therefore feature prominently throughout the Summit programme.

As Ireland has grown at three times the EU average over the last seven years and is widely considered a role model for economic dynamism in Europe, Dublin is an ideal venue for the Summit.

Programme Highlights
Europe's Regulatory Environment: Manoeuvring through the Maze
Financial Services Action Plan: Key to Europe's Competitiveness?
Enlargement: What's Ahead for the World's Biggest Market?
Europe's Competitive Edge: Where will Future Growth Come From?
Transatlantic Business Relations: Withstanding the Storm?
Education: Upgrading Skills and Harnessing Talent
Facing Global Competition: How to Retain Investment in Europe
Fostering Entrepreneurship: Sharing Best Practices in Enterprise Policy
Creating Sustainable Employment Models
Centres of Excellence? Clustering Knowledge and Innovation
Universities and Venture Capital: An Alliance for Success?
An Action Plan for the Creation of a European Research Area
On Track? Industrial Policy for the 21st Century
Delivering the Goods: Completion of the Single Market

Co-Chairs
Richard S. Bobrow, Global Chief Executive Officer, Ernst & Young, United Kingdom
Peter D. Sutherland, Chairman, Goldman Sachs International, United Kingdom; Chairman, BP, United Kingdom

Contact Information
For information on the Summit and participation, please contact europeansummit@weforum.org

Points of View



"The EU has to shift from rhetoric to reform if the goal set in Lisbon is to remain within reach. There are gigantic gains to be made from completing the internal market and increasing competitiveness across the board."

Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament, Brussels



"Europe needs to foster entrepreneur-ship more effectively. New entrepreneurial initiatives, either starting a new firm or reorienting an existing one, boost productivity, efficiency and innovation. Entrepreneurship is relevant for firms in all sectors, technological or traditional, and for small and large firms."

Erkki Liikanen, Commissioner, Enterprise and Information Society, European Commission, Brussels