The EU must forge a new industrial competitiveness policy if the bloc is to meet its goal of outperforming the US and Japan, a top EU official said in a policy paper on Thursday.
EU leaders hope to turn the bloc into a knowledge-based economy, but in 2000 research spending of 1.9 percent of GDP still lagged Japanese and US investment of 3 percent and 2.7 percent respectively.
European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin said the drive for industrial competitiveness should bring internal market, industry and research policies under one roof.
"We have to stop speeding up in one area while slowing down in another," he told his fellow Commissioners in an internal seminar on industrial policy on Wednesday.
The EU needed to use grants and tax breaks to encourage investment. It should simplify regulation, especially where research was hampered by differences between EU and US rules, such as in the new field of biotherapies.
"Europe is anything but at the forefront here, with regulation that is either totally inadequate or non-existent," he said, adding that regulatory problems strangled the development of new technologies at birth.
In addition, the EU had only 5.1 researchers per 1,000 workers, compared to 7.4 in the US and 8.9 in Japan.
"Europe's students are not generally opting for science careers at the moment and there is insufficient mobility of research staff," Busquin said.
He proposed bringing together governments, industry, scientists and consumers to work out strategies for specific research areas such as biotechnology, nanotechnology and alternative fuels.
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