The article depicts the role of European Union in the world economy in the light of globalization
processes. It diagnoses many facets of the poor competitiveness of the integrated Europe
such as economic performance, labour productivity as well as R&D input and output. It also
shows some structural shortages of the EU economy, e.g. the European social model and the
way to overcome them in terms of the Lisbon Strategy. On the grounds of the tentative assessment,
some priorities for the future are drawn.