Commission encourages competitiveness of European enterprises faced with globalisation
The European Commission has adopted a communication launching an open debate with the European Union's (EU) different political, economic and social players on the orientation of a new industrial policy with a view to addressing the challenges of globalisation and accelerated technological changes. The communication diagnoses European industry's weaknesses and proposes a series of measures to promote industrial competitiveness. These measures aim to: - Reinforce intangible investment; - Promote the access of European enterprises to the global market; - Develop the dialogue between industry and public authorities; - Improve financing by the elimination of institutional and regulatory barriers as well as by improving the tax regime applied to venture capital; - Adapt the rules relating to the information society and electronic commerce. Globalisation is seen as an opportunity for Europe to seize, not a threat. On the initiative of Martin Bangemann and Edith Cresson, members of the European Commission charged with responsibility for industry and research respectively, the communication seeks to propose the definition of a new industrial policy to encourage the competitiveness of European enterprises in the face of globalisation. The communication diagnoses the weaknesses of European industry: - Europe does not have a strong presence in the business services sector; - European enterprises resort to insufficient externalisation; - Specialisation remains underdeveloped in sectors with high growth, highly differentiated products and requiring a strong marketing strategy; - The European audiovisual sector is in an unfavourable competitive position; - European enterprises form relatively few alliances in advanced technology areas; - The amounts invested by risk capital funds are insufficiently oriented towards new and high- technology industries; - European enterprises can access financial markets only with difficulty; - The level of R&D spending in terms of EU GDP is still below that of its principal global economic partners; - The exploitation of research results is not efficient enough; - The EU suffers from high costs and the complexity of procedures for achieving intellectual property protection in Europe; - European enterprises put very few joint research projects in place. To counteract this situation and stimulate European competitiveness, the communication emphasises the following proposals, among others: - Reinforce intangible investment, by adapting the systems of accrediting competencies and by improving the level of and return from research resources, especially through a better system of intellectual property protection; - Develop human resources by acting on the educational system, by encouraging the spirit of enterprise and various forms of social innovation and social cohesion; - Promote the access of European enterprises to the world market, by accelerating the exploitation of the competitive advantages of the Single Market; - Promote fair rules of the game at a world level in view of the new round of WTO negotiations (that is by developing an observation system for public support to research in industrialised countries); - Develop the dialogue between industry and public authorities and forms of self-regulation (protection of consumers and users); - Improve financing by eliminating institutional and regulatory barriers to the development of venture capital and improving the tax regime applied to venture capital; - Adaptation of the rules to the context of the information society and electronic commerce (agreements such as the "International Charter").