Almost eight years after it was launched, the European Union’s flagship strategy for economic growth has finally started to have effect, the EU’s executive said last week.

“The Lisbon Growth and Jobs Strategy is working (and) contributing to the recent much-improved performance of the EU economy,” the European Commission said in a statement.

But the progress of the strategy, which was launched in March 2000 with the aim of making the EU the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010, is still patchy at best, with fewer than half of the EU’s 27 member States judged to have brought their policies in line with the latest EU recommendations.

“Much more remains to be done. Progress is uneven between policy areas and some member States are moving much faster than others,” head of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso said.

According to the Commission’s report on the Lisbon Strategy, most EU member States have now implemented the main economic reforms they had pledged to bring in between 2005 and 2007.

Only three – Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – are judged to have achieved just “limited” progress in that respect.

But only a handful ? Denmark, Ireland, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Britain ? have done well in implementing further EU recommendations on policy reforms. France, Lithuania, Malta and Austria are judged to have only made limited progress.

“Some member States have responded more robustly than others, and some signs of ‘reform fatigue’ have become apparent over the last few months,” the report pointed out.

More worryingly still, 14 member States have not yet made adequate efforts to boost research and development in their economies. R&D is seen as being crucial to stimulating the kind of high-tech industry the EU has set as its goal.

“The proportion of GDP spent on R&D in the EU has recently failed to keep up with stronger economic growth rates and decreased to 1.85 per cent in 2006,” the report warned.

In March 2008, the Commission is set to propose a series of measures aimed at strengthening economic performance by such means as the introduction of an EU-wide patent office, an EU-wide law on small businesses, and the liberalization of energy markets.