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Tuesday, June 13, 2006

More on England

Conservative William Hague
on EU Universities



The Lisbon agenda – the aim of making the EU the world's most dynamic and competitive economy by 2010 – was supposed to be the answer. At the time the Prime Minister proclaim[ed] a 'sea change in European economic thinking', marked, he said by 'concrete measures with clear deadlines'. It was yet another bold Blair assertion that does not correspond in any way with any observable reality. Romano Prodi described the Lisbon agenda as a 'big failure'. He was right.

…Only two of the world's top twenty universities are still in Europe and they are Oxford and Cambridge. Japan has one but the United States has seventeen. More European PhD students at American universities stay there than come back. And the research and development gap between Europe and the rest of the world is widening further. The increase in corporate research and development investment for 2004-05 was two per cent in Europe but seven per cent in the US and Asia. Europe's economies have lost their cost advantages. If Europe loses its knowledge advantage as well to China, India and others its economies will become utterly uncompetitive within our lifetimes.