Abstract
The European Union must become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, and its research and development spending must increase to 3% of GDP by 2010. These are the ambitions revealed by the conclusions of the Lisbon Summit of March 2000 and the European Commission’s declaration made in 2002. However, since 1992, under the Maastricht Treaty and then the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997, European countries, particularly those of the Economic and Monetary Union, have been required to achieve a balanced budget or even a surplus in the medium term. They are, however, permitted to have a budget deficit, but it must not exceed 3% of GDP. To comply with these rules of budgetary discipline, these countries must implement budgetary consolidation, necessarily involving a reduction in public spending. This study attempts to show to what extent the budgetary discipline imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact on the Member States of the Economic and Monetary Union prevents them from achieving the objectives set by the Lisbon Strategy. Simultaneously achieving the Lisbon and the Pact objectives could involve reducing investment in line with the budget balance.