Applying a Comprehensive Neo-Schumpeterian Approach to Europe and Its Lisbon Agenda

In March 2000, the EU Heads of States and Governments agreed on the so-called Lisbon Agenda to make the EU "the most competitive and dynamic knowledgedriven economy by 2010". This goal must be considered extremely challenging and extraordinarily difficult to be accomplished. From the point of view of economics, the following major issues have to be addressed: 1. First of all the decisive economic elements and forces responsible for the achievement of the agenda must be identified. 2. An adequate economic approach should be developed which explicitly includes these elements. 3. For the application of this theoretical approach on the empirical realm the right methodological concept must be found. 4. The fourth major issue is to apply this operationalization to Europe. A severe difficulty here stems from the fact that Europe is not a unity composed of homogenous components but a collection of heterogeneous countries. Accordingly, the method chosen should focus on detecting patterns of similarities and dissimilarities among the countries under investigation. 5. This discovery of patterns is a necessary step for a further analysis which focuses on the manifestation of success in the sense of the Lisbon Agenda and compares patterns of similarity with patterns of performance.