歐盟在工業(yè)和科技政策方面的政策規(guī)定
 

本文的目的就是為了挑戰(zhàn)一種理念，就是歐盟商業(yè)和科技政策已經(jīng)且將會(huì)為提升歐洲競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力做出重要貢獻(xiàn)。因此，本文將會(huì)研究什么是主要的問題和制約因素，它們會(huì)影響歐盟的工業(yè)和科技政策增強(qiáng)歐盟的整體競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力。
 

1.本文是由四大部分組成的。
 

首先它會(huì)接觸一些對(duì)歐盟商業(yè)政策（IP）的定義，技術(shù)政策（TP）和競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力，為進(jìn)一步分析論證提供了一些背景和基礎(chǔ)。
 

本文接下來會(huì)討論關(guān)于歐盟和國(guó)家規(guī)定的在工業(yè)和科技政策領(lǐng)域方面，阻礙歐盟競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力的提升。
 

其次，我們會(huì)特殊的關(guān)注于技術(shù)和研發(fā)上，因?yàn)檫@將會(huì)很有可能提升競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力，但是，由于缺少合適的協(xié)調(diào)和統(tǒng)一，技術(shù)和研發(fā)無法做出適當(dāng)?shù)呢暙I(xiàn)。
 

2.定義
 

工業(yè)和科技政策。經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家對(duì)于工業(yè)政策的題目有不同的方法。[1]IP可被定義為是一種政府使用的工具，來創(chuàng)造“供應(yīng)方面的潛能”

Eu Regulations In Industrial And Technological Policies Economics Essay
 

The purpose of this paper is to challenge the idea that the EU industrial and technological policies have been and would be an important contribution to enhance the EU competitiveness. Therefore, the paper will study what are the main drawbacks and hindering factors that don’t let the EU industrial and technological policies contribute to the EU competitiveness with their whole capacity.

 

1.The report is comprised of four parts.

 

It will first touch upon some definitions of EU industrial policy(IP), technological policy(TP) and the competitiveness to give some background and base for the further analyses and argumentation.

 

The paper will then bring arguments on how EU and state-level regulations in the filed of industrial and technological policies hinder the enhancement of the EU competitiveness.

 

Afterwards, a special focus will be done on technologies and R&D as a filed with a great potential to enhance competitiveness, which however, due to lack of proper coordination and harmonisation, does not make that contribution.

 

Finally, the paper will touch upon the famous ‘Monti Report’ and identify some drawbacks in some of the recommendations there.

 

2. Definitions

 

Industrial and Technological Policy. Economists have different approaches to the subject of Industrial Policy. [1] IP can be defined as the set of tools used by a government to create “incentives for the supply side” [2] , in order to assure the “future economic growth” [3] of a country, by modelling its “comparative advantage” [4] and “national economic structure” [5] .

 

The EU IP can be described in narrow or extensive ways, depending on the set of other EU policies considered as its tools. Since the EU IP “’borrows’ instruments from other EU policies” [6] , the more of other policies are taken in, the wider the scope of its definition becomes. Jacques Pelkmans provides both wide and narrow definition. His “wide concept of Industrial Policy” [7] includes three categories: the “framework” economic features of the EU which affect and constraint its IP; the “horizontal” and the “sectoral/specific industrial policy”. While, according to his narrow conceptualisation, the EU IP can rely only on “specific and horizontal instruments” [8] of “four policy areas: internal market provisions, competition policy, trade policy” [9] and policies in fields as research, technology or SMEs.

 

With regard to the Technological Policy, the same considerations concerning the aim and scope of the IP can be adduced. In fact, these two policies are considered to differ only in the sense that IP “emphasizes physical capital, whereas Technological Policy emphasizes the creation and utilization of knowledge”. [10]

 

Competitiveness. Competitiveness can be referred to companies, industries or whole economies (of national or supranational entities). [11] The World Economic Forum describes Competitiveness as “the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country” [12] and then its “growth potential”. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development defines competitiveness as the capability “to generate, while being and remaining exposed to international competition, relatively high factor income and factor employment levels on a sustainable basis”. [13]

 

EU institutions have stressed the importance of the EU competitiveness in a great number of documents, at the same time defining it. For instance, the Competitiveness Advisory Group stated that:

 

“Competitiveness implies elements of productivity, efficiency and profitability. But it is not an end in itself or a target. It is a powerful means to achieve rising living standards and increasing social welfare – a tool for achieving targets. Globally, by increasing productivity and efficiency in the context of international specialization, competitiveness provides the basis for raising peoples’ earnings in a non-inflationary way”. [14]

 

3. EU regulations in Industrial and Technological policies

 

One of the most important factors affecting the EU IP and the competitiveness of the Single Market is regulations. They are implemented at two levels: national and European.

 

The EU regulations control the national policies and harmonise the Single Market. They include public procurement, anti-dumping measures, technical standards, health requirements, rules related to dominant firms, mergers and acquisitions. [15] However, very often national policies contradict with the EU IP. Industrial policies of Member States apply protectionist approaches to their declining sectors and companies to make them more competitive against foreign companies. Thus, state aids hinder the emergence of efficient and competitive companies at European level, thus making the Single Market less competitive in the world economy.#p#分頁(yè)標(biāo)題#e#

 

Article 92(1) of the TEU forbids state aids by the MSs if they anyhow affect the EU. However, Article 92(2) allows state aids designed for social purposes and Article 92 (3) allows state aid for industries facing temporary crisis, and for promoting projects of common EU interest and boosting economic development of areas with low living standards. Actually, regulations fail to refrain MSs from abusing the usage of protectionist measures. [16]

 

Meantime the EU regulations in the Industrial and Technological Policies themselves at some point hinder the competitiveness of the Single Market: the legislation is too complicated and rules impose many administrative burdens. The issue of better regulations has always been in the EU agenda. The European Commission’s recent communication on better regulation in the EU supports simplification of the existing legislation and reduction of unnecessary administrative burdens by 25% by 2012. [17]

 

Likewise, the recent EU Competitiveness Report empathises the need for further regulatory reforms crucial for making some sectors more competitive. The report mentions the need of reducing administrative burdens, making the labour markets more flexible and liberalising some key sectors in economy so that to reap the full economic potential of those sectors. [18]

 

According to Gilberto Sarfati, the EU Industrial Policy itself creates non-tariff barriers within the Single Market by designing and implementing programs that are meant to assist particular industries and regions. [19] He brings the example of the state aids for the Airbus consortium jointly operated by France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. Another case of non-tariff barrier is the VERs on the EC-Japan car arrangement when the EU has come to a compromised agreement with Japan: the agreement defined a level of car imports from Japan until 1999. [20]

 

A good example of regulations that impose restrictions on companies is the European chemicals regulation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restrictions of Chemicals) which imposes harsh restrictions and hinders small and medium businesses in the sector.

 

Furthermore, estimates show that the EU regulations have very high cost. A British think thank, for example, estimated that starting from 1998 until now the regulation introduced in the United Kingdom has cost the British economy ￡176 billion. The ￡124 billion, or 71% of this sum has had its origin in the EU. [21] In another analysis, the think-thank has estimated that from 2010 until 2020 the EU regulations will cost the UK economy another ￡184 billion. [22]

 

4. Technological Policy: drawbacks

 

The industrial landscape has significantly changed with the new technologies. With time, their share in the economy has grown up. Thus, it is very important to have an adequate technological policy to cope with these changes and foster economic growth.

 

The idea that Europe fails to achieve its full potential in science and technology because its research efforts are dispersed, expensive and wastefully duplicated across MSs has inspired the EU Research and Technological Development policy (R&TD) [23] .

 

The previous graph shows the Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) as a percentage of GDP. The most significant increase is for Japan which passed from 3% in 1998 to 3.44% in 2007. The US expenditures rose from 2.58% in 1998 to 2.75% in 2008. EU27 and EU15 are far behind with a modest increase of respectively 1.79% and 1.84% in 1998 (taking into account the GERD of new MS before their adhesion to the EU) to 1.9% and 1.99% in 2008.

 

We notice that the EU27 curve is below the EU15 one. This is due to the difference of economic structures of old and new member states.

 

Within the EU, there are huge differences of GERD and not only between new and old MSs. This shows that most of R&D programs are national. Thus the EU must concentrate its efforts on bringing the European countries together in R&D to avoid duplication, be more efficient and cover more fields.

 

The major framework initiatives examination does not produce encouraging results of effectiveness. Independent studies show that from 1984 to 1984, 10 billion dollars have been allocated to the information technology program (ESPRIT). Less than half of the projects have had any impact on the market. The results of the Advanced Materials program (BRITE) are similar, with 3.2billion spent through 1994. The communication and technology program (RACE), on which 2.8billion dollars are allocated, has been plagued by delays [25] .

 

One of the negative aspects of the European TP is the low share of the private sector. In fact, the contribution of multinational programs in all the pan-European programs including EUREKA, European Space Agency, CERN particle research and atomic energy is only 10%. Although the EU money is focused on rising industries, a large part of the 90% share of the national programs continue to be devoted to old industries [26] .

 

The Patent demands at the European Patent Office (EPO) per million inhabitants increased since 1990. As shown on the graph above, Japan is leading in front of US and EU. It is interesting to notice that there is a big disparity within the EU MSs. Italy is below the EU level while Sweden is almost 3 times ahead, way in front of Japan. Once again, the contribution of the 12 new MSs is low. In correlation with the previous graph, countries or regions which spend more on R&D get a better return in patents. Of course, there is a difference between invention which is the discovery and creation of something new and innovation which includes commercial application and needs risk taking, but patents increase the chances of setting up or improving businesses and their success by allowing exclusive rights [28] . At this level, comes the role of the EU as a promoter of technology businesses, especially for SMEs.#p#分頁(yè)標(biāo)題#e#

 

The graph shows the Hi-tech products exportations as a percentage of total exportation. EU is behind US and Japan especially in information and communication technologies. This is a natural result to the previous two graphs. In fact, by failing to innovate and remaining at the forefront of new technology, countries lose international competitiveness [30] .

 

The EU projects’ evaluations are weak and of little use in measuring success particularly in increasing competitiveness. The focus of much of the supranational and national aid in Europe has been on the electronic sector, especially for ICT. But, this sector is still weak after more than 10 years of support [31] .

 

5. The Monti Report

 

The Monti Report provides guidelines for the future EU IP. This paragraph discusses two “key recommendations” [32] of the Report, showing they wouldn’t contribute to enhance the EU competitiveness.

 

Merger control. The first “key recommendation” [33] is to suppress the “two-thirds rule” of EU merger regulation. This proposal has been officially criticized by the French Government, for not representing an effective tool to ensure the “competitiveness of companies” [34] on the world stage.

 

Moreover, the French remark shows a further reason why the future EU IP would not enhance the European competitiveness. In order to have a coherent IP, EU needs the cooperation of the MSs. Without the coordination between national and European levels, the IP would not be properly implemented. The French objection lets foresee future difficulties in the implementation of the Monti strategy that would undermine its effectiveness.

 

New approach of IP. The second “key recommendation” is to “develop a new approach to industrial policy which builds on a mutually reinforcing relation with single market and competition law” [35] .

 

There are two comments on this “new approach” [36] . Firstly, instead of proposing the future EU IP, it focuses mainly on the Competition Policy as an instrument to ensure competitiveness. Secondly, it brings the Airbus case as a major achievement in the creation of European Champions. However, “the impact of Airbus on technological innovation by other producers has been negative” [37] . The absence of positive externalities for technological development on one hand means that there wouldn’t be competitiveness gains for the whole European sector, and on the other hand implies a lack of economic justification for such “Industrial Policy intervention” [38] .

 

6. Conclusion

 

One of the most important instruments affecting the EU competitiveness is the regulations in industrial and technological policies. On one side the IP of the MSs are very protectionist, and even though there are EU regulations, they do not refrain the MSs from applying state aid to their national companies and sectors. Thus, the States support inefficient companies not letting the market produce highly competitive champions.

 

On the other hand, the EU regulations themselves are at times restrictive and impose administrative burdens on different sectors and companies. This again, does not contribute to the emergence of strongly competitive champions at European level.

 

In 2000, The European Union Lisbon council aimed at making Europe ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world’ by 2010. This target has not been achieved and still EU faces many challenges to improve this sector. This demonstrates that Europe has not been following the right policy. In fact, R&D programs are still led at national levels with high state contribution which shows EU’s lack of coordination. In Framework programs, much of the efforts and money has been wasted and didn’t give results.

 

When consulting the ‘Monti Report’ for the future of EU IP, we can see that to implement the two elements of the “key recommendations” of the Report (namely the proposal to abolish the two-thirds rule for merger investigation and the call for a renewed approach for the EU IP), the EU industrial and technological policies need to be coordinated and harmonised to a sufficient level, and thus the current situation doesn’t let the field to develop in its whole capacity and contribute to the EU competitiveness.