The row over the way Europe spends its money could result in a massive boost for investment in technology.
“We spend on agriculture probably ten times what we spend on science, or technology, or research and development, or training across the EU,” said UK Prime Minister Tony Blair in Paris last week.
Blair went on to point out that the EU spends nearly €50bn annually, representing 40 per cent of the EU budget, on agriculture.
“What I have an objection to is the EU deciding collectively that it is going to put 40 per cent of its budget into an area where you have got, what, two per cent of the employment. It makes no sense,” said Blair, “whereas you can imagine if we were spending some of that money on producing the innovation and technology for the future that is going to make our companies more competitive, then people would be saying: ‘Right I understand what the EU is about’."
Backing Blair was Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. “We should do our utmost to make the EU the most competitive economy in the world and to achieve that goal we need much more investment in research, innovation and education,” said Rasmussen.
Welcoming Blair’s comments, Arthur van der Poel, chairman of the pan-European microelectronics R&D body MEDEA+, told Electronics Weekly: “While we recognise the sensitivities surrounding the agriculturral subsidy, there is one sector that gets $1bn a year in EU subsidy, and that’s the tobacco industry. It’s about the same amount as goes into supporting the entire ICT (Information and Communication Technology) industry.”
For microelectronics, the principal driver of ICT innovation, the spending imbalance is even more pronounced. According to MEDEA’s Gerard Matheron, the level of European public authority support for microelectronics research in Europe has stayed the same for 15 years - at about €140m annually.
www.medea.org