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Tech is the new gunpowder. USA and China government understand how to prioritize and plan this. The European Union needs a 5 to 10 year tech plan like this olde

Tech is the new gunpowder. USA and China government understand how to prioritize and plan this. The European Union needs a 5 to 10 year tech plan like this older Chinese one: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11684 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11684

pas 5y ago
Yes, gunpowder is literally tech too after all, and there's no shortage of tech in the EU. The EU Horizon2020 was a great initiative for example. The EU thinks in 7 year budget cycles. I too recommend more spending on tech and science. That said the direct EU budget is not particularly huge (just 1% of the GNI of all of the member states), but members should spend on tech more anyway. And the NGEU (next gen EU) COVID relief fund is "just" 750B EUR. (Though again, member states themselves will also spend a lot of money on boosting the recovery.) Naturally there are obvious strategically important areas where the EU as whole should do direct investment into R&D. (Food, energy security and health for example.) There's about 20B EUR / year earmarked for "single market, innovation and digital" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiannual_Financial_Framework#Expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiannual_Financial_Framewor... ) China does understand that the best way to build up a particular industrial capability is to do it. "Just do it". Especially using tech transfer agreements. Hence their amazing railway network. (But their 5year plan is not particularly interesting.) ---- I'd argue that the EU should just do more (a lot more!) of what it usually does anyway. (Which is participating in various projects, from ITER, ESA (+ Galileo), to funding a lot of initiatives like NGI.) Also it'd be great to capitalize on GDPR and other differentiating directives. (So partially funding projects that offer GDPR-compliant alternatives.) ... and healthcare, the EU populace is aging, fast .. if that's not great "market" opportunity I don't know what is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But, still, the core issue is that there's not enough direct capital sloshing around in the EU. If the Commission would partially fund targeted VC funds it could make very big waves in various tech sectors.

pas 5y ago

Yes, gunpowder is literally tech too after all, and there's no shortage of tech in the EU. The EU Horizon2020 was a great initiative for example. The EU thinks in 7 year budget cycles. I too recommend more spending on tech and science. That said the direct EU budget is not particularly huge (just 1% of the GNI of all of the member states), but members should spend on tech more anyway. And the NGEU (next gen EU) COVID relief fund is "just" 750B EUR. (Though again, member states themselves will also spend a lot of money on boosting the recovery.) Naturally there are obvious strategically important areas where the EU as whole should do direct investment into R&D. (Food, energy security and health for example.) There's about 20B EUR / year earmarked for "single market, innovation and digital" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiannual_Financial_Framework#Expenditures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiannual_Financial_Framewor... ) China does understand that the best way to build up a particular industrial capability is to do it. "Just do it". Especially using tech transfer agreements. Hence their amazing railway network. (But their 5year plan is not particularly interesting.) ---- I'd argue that the EU should just do more (a lot more!) of what it usually does anyway. (Which is participating in various projects, from ITER, ESA (+ Galileo), to funding a lot of initiatives like NGI.) Also it'd be great to capitalize on GDPR and other differentiating directives. (So partially funding projects that offer GDPR-compliant alternatives.) ... and healthcare, the EU populace is aging, fast .. if that's not great "market" opportunity I don't know what is. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But, still, the core issue is that there's not enough direct capital sloshing around in the EU. If the Commission would partially fund targeted VC funds it could make very big waves in various tech sectors.