The EU should make the Lisbon agenda for growth and jobs "explicitly subordinate" to the bloc’s broader sustainable development strategy when the latter is revised later this year, according to Dutch experts. Without this, environmental priorities risk being sidelined, argues the Dutch environmental assessment agency (MNP) in a report.

There is general acceptance in principle that economic growth is just one facet of sustainable development. But in practice European policy-making is skewed towards the Lisbon agenda, says MNP. The bias is well expressed in European commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso’s "three children" metaphor justifying priority to economic revival.

Lisbon’s dominance is shown by the fact that it is the only pillar of sustainable development that EU heads of government review annually. It is also the only one for which member states have taken on obligations to report on what they do to fulfil objectives. Indicators created to measure progress on sustainability have gradually been refocused on economic issues, the agency states.

This shift has happened without consideration of trade-offs - such as environmental damage - or of their acceptability, MNP goes on. It cites greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss as two critical environmental issues that have already been traded off against economic growth.

If greater competitiveness were a precondition of sustainability, then Europe would be right to focus above all else on economic growth. But in practice it is "risky" to assume this without assessing trade-offs explicitly, MNP says.

It recommends very clearly putting sustainable development at the pinnacle of EU policy-making, creating one single document, endorsed and monitored by the European council. This should set goals, which take into account socio-economic priorities, environmental concerns and international commitments.

Prioritisation, and where necessary trade-offs, should be achieved through explicit, science-based debate, and also by relating proposals to EU public opinion and priorities. A survey of more than 3,500 people in six EU member states last year suggested the majority would support greater attention to elements of sustainable development other than jobs and growth.

For the Lisbon strategy this would require an explicit description of how it will contribute to sustainable development, how trade-offs will be avoided or to what extent they are to be accepted.

The EU sustainable development strategy was adopted in 2001, one year after the Lisbon agenda, whose goal was to make Europe into the most competitive world region by 2010. The European council is due to revise the sustainability strategy in June, drawing on proposals issued in December by the European commission.