Abstract
On the 23rd and the 24th of March 2000, the European Council settled major goals for the next decade hoping that the European Union will ‘become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion '. At that time the EU growth was high and the unemployment rate was decreasing. Consequently, the European Council members planned to achieve these goals by ‘improving the existing processes; introducing a new open method of coordination at all levels ' under the guidance of the European Council. Basically, the Council hoped that the economic situation and the economic integration would be enough to be a major power in the world.
Almost a decade later, the EU is trying to deal with a global economic crisis and has already changed the strategy which questioned the relation between the economic integration and the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy.
