The Lisbon Strategy in the Wider European Context CONCLUSIONS The first phase of implementation of the Lisbon Strategy has not been a success due to the lack of political leadership, commitment and ownership on the part of member states, but also due to bad governance and lack of prioritisation. It was initially intended to improve Europe's economy and boost employment through achieving certain objectives, such as creating an internal market for services, decreasing administrative burdens, improving human capital, reaching the target of raising the level of expenditure on research, development and innovation, raising the level of the overall employment rate, etc. Even in the areas where Europe has been better performing there is a need for reforms, including the European social model. The reforms following the mid-term review are expected to lead to improved delivery and better results thanks to the more focused objectives, clearer planning and stronger ownership of the process in member states. The experiences and achievements in implementation of the strategy in some of the new EU member states show that the situation differs from country to country. Their good practice is particularly useful for Croatia. There are several lessons that could be learnt from Slovenia's case. It is important to focus on proper priorities, in spite of pressure from special interests and political risks, as well as to involve and ensure full participation of interested stakeholders. Furthermore, there is the need to establish the best possible communication with citizens and to achieve the best use of the EU, through improving the administrative and absorption capacity for EU funds. The Czech Republic experience underlines the problem of solving the discrepancy between the enormous public tasks of high employment, capacity building in health and social services, alleviation of poverty, and strengthening social cohesion in the new member states, and their insufficient social, economic and administrative implementation capacities. The EU incentives regarding institution building and transfer of skills were helpful, but national initiatives of the new member states could be seen as an added value to this EU­centred effort. The case of Hungary shows that new member states face the problem of overlapping(and sometimes even conflicting) reform programmes. This relates to the NRPs and some other documents that were prepared previously, because they cover a lot of aspects that were already present in other programmes or plans and have overlapping time frames. Although not obligatory, the Lisbon Strategy objectives are relevant for Croatia in the pre-accession stage. The strategy does not introduce additional 31