Višnja Samardžija (reform of the judiciary and public administration, reduction of public ex­penditure, deficit and taxes); strengthening innovation and technological development; improving cooperation between R&D institutions and business; increasing(public and private) investment in R&D and education; accelerating the process of privatisation; and the restructuring of state and local public enterprises. They correspond quite well with the Lisbon goals, but also with priorities underlined in the government's strategic development document. Furthermore, Croatia is comparatively positioned through benchmarks in a number of recent comparative international studies, such as the“Global Entrepreneurship Monitor”(GEM, 2006). It shows that Croatia's position has risen from 32nd place in 2002 to 19th place in 2005 when measuring several composite indicators of entrepreneurship development and competitiveness of the enterprise sector. Another example is the area of education and training. The Commission report on progress towards the Lisbon objectives in education and training(European Commission, 2006b) gives comparative indicators for 30 European countries (EU 15, the acceding countries, candidate countries, and EEA countries). Croatia is not comparatively positioned according to all indicators(due to insufficient statistics) but is presented in most of the areas. In higher education, one of the European benchmarks is that 85% of 22 year-olds in the EU should have completed upper secondary education by 2010. A high level of general educational attainment among the working population is a prerequisite for a dynamic and competitive economy. In this respect, Croatia is highly positioned as compared to EU member states. Many of the new member states already perform above the EU benchmark set for 2010, while three of them(Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia) have shares over 90%. According to the EU report, this is the case of Croatia as well, although the position is not so good according to national statistics. In any case, this confirms that significant improvement has been achieved, although it opens up the question of the compatibility of the statistical methodology applied. Achievements and challenges Croatia is making progress in different areas covered by the revised Lisbon Strategy, but is still facing many challenges to catch up with the new EU member states. Some practical examples that are mentioned in the continuation of the paper might give an indication of the positioning of Croatia in approaching the Lisbon goals(Boromisa and Samard ž ija, 2006). 28