The 1998 Cardiff Initiative building on Prime Minister G ran Persson s proposal at the Luxembourg summit in December 1997 formed the starting point of a process stimulating the development of strategies for integrating environmental concerns in sector policies and to propose mechanisms based on indicators to report on progress. The Helsinki summit in December 1999 discussed the first sectoral integration strategies, and placed these in the framework of the development of an overall sustainability strategy and the 6 th Environmental Action Programme. At the same time it set out a cycle for regularly revisiting progress in sectoral integration on the European Council level. The Lisbon process, starting with the March 2000 European Summit on employment, economic reform and social cohesion was the start of an attemt for integrating social and economic aspects of development and making the links with the March 2001 Stockholm summit. Both processes from Cardiff to Helsinki to Gothenburg and from Lisbon to Stockholm to Gothenburg are expected to lead to some joined up thinking on all aspects of sustainable development at European Council level and repeated every year at the spring summit.
Indicators provide an instrument for measuring and communicating progress and for benchmarking.
The experience of the use of GDP and also of the EMU convergence parameters tells you that you can only manage what you measure. Indicators can be used as a tool to measure and communicate direction of change of sustainable development to different target groups and perhaps most important to the European citizen. Using indicators to compare or benchmark individual countries, sectors and companies is an efficient way to make decision makers accountable and to foster progress as both failur and success stories become evident. The improvement of indicators is a continous process but available sustainability indicators are enough developed to be used now, otherwise such indicators will never get off the ground. The best must not be the enemy of the good.