This article analyses the concept, content, and historical experiences of strategic planning in modern economic policy-making. It does so also through the analysis of the case of Lithuania, which has recently undergone transformation from the centrally planned to the fully functioning market economy and now faces new challenges as a member-to-be of the European Union. The central thesis of this article is that the long-term competitiveness of the Lithuanian economy will be determined by its “micro” or enterprise-level policies, which, according to the effectiveness of implementation, will much depend on the capacity of Lithuanian institutions to manage the dilemmas of EU industrial policy.