Sweden tops innovation league in EU

Date: 03/08/00

By Peter Chapman

HIGH-TECH Sweden and Finland have emerged as the early leaders in a new league table of innovation-friendly member states set to be unveiled by industry chief Erkki Liikanen next month.

The homes of industrial giants Ericsson and Nokia top the table drawn up in the aftermath of the Lisbon 'dot com' summit in March, at which EU leaders demanded new efforts to bolster the transformation of the Union into a high-growth, high-tech, low-unemployment haven.

The first results put Sweden in first place, closely followed by Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Ireland, which are all way above lowly Greece and Portugal. Germany, the Union's economic powerhouse, is the best-performing 'big' member state, well above the middle-ranking UK and France, which recorded a "mixed result", Spain and Italy.

The league table, which will be regularly updated, ranks member states on the basis of a complex series of variables from their willingness to apply new ways of thinking to the availability and take up of venture capital and the 'creation of new knowledge'.

But officials insist that the initiative is designed to spur member states into introducing measures to foster innovation, rather than to name and shame poor performers. "The table is not meant to show up member states that are bad. Its purpose is to encourage them," said one.

A policy paper accompanying the league table will include recommendations as to what action countries could take to improve their position. But officials insist that member states which currently find themselves low down the table may already be doing many of the right things. They say their poor positions could be a sign that these countries' economies are more diverse and that relatively small changes in smaller, less diverse member states are having a disproportionate effect on their position in the league.

The table is part of a broader 'benchmarking exercise' designed to access the impact of the EU's enterprise policy and measure the bloc's competitiveness which is due to be unveiled later this year. This is expected to highlight other structural problems which are putting a brake on the Union's efforts to catch its US and Far Eastern rivals.

The initiative is the latest Commission attempt to cajole member states into taking action through the publication of league tables and benchmarking.

Competition chief Mario Monti is planning a similar scheme in a bid to reduce state aid, while Liikanen has also published tables of telecom interconnection charges in member states in an effort to drive down prices.

High-tech Sweden and Finland have emerged as the early leaders in a new league table of innovation-friendly Member States set to be unveiled by industry chief Erkki Liikanen in September.