Rescuing a Failing Economy

If the European Union economy is failing to live up to its Lisbon Agenda Dreams and resistance to liberalisation is blocking progress, what to do?

The European Commission will this week set out plans to double its research budget to €70bn ($90bn, £48bn) as it seeks to bolster growth and competitiveness and catch up with the US and Japan's spending on innovation.

That’s right, State Spending. Take careful note of the goal here, to spend as much as the USA and Japan not to be as creative. US R&D spending, with the exception of the Military, is a private sector affair. Japan on the other hand is famous for companies that innovate well and a government that spends wildly on projects that are never commercial successes. Not everyone is happy.

But the proposals have caused alarm in some EU countries, concerned that the drive for results will mean EU money is pumped into elite institutions with the best research records mainly in Britain, the Nordic countries and the Netherlands.

Typical EU, nobody is concerned with whether it is a good idea or not, only with how the money is to be distributed. It all goes to show that the EU is good for one thing. A better example of why state spending is such a bad idea would be very hard to find.