By IANS,
Brussels : The European Commission chief has urged countries of the European Union (EU) to avoid cutting spending in innovation and education in spite of the tightening measures they have to take to tide over the debt crisis.
Cutting spending in innovation, education, research and development (R&D) would be “the shortest way to lower growth and fewer jobs in the future”, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said at a conference Monday.
“We need fiscal consolidation, but smart fiscal consolidation. This is the way to promote growth and competitiveness for today and tomorrow,” the president said at the Innovation Convention 2011 conference “The Innovation Union one year on”.
Barroso warned Europe was falling behind in innovation, said Xinhua.
“Our collective innovation performance is not good enough. Europe is losing ground on several fronts,” he said.
In the US, companies established by “young leading innovators” account for 35 percent of the total R&D for leading innovators, compared to 7 percent in Europe, according to Barroso.
“We are by value the largest market in the world but we are too fragmented and not enough innovative-friendly,” he added.
Barroso also hailed the Horizon 2020 framework adopted by the commission last week, which would “drastically simplify the rules governing EU funding and will be key to foster an excellent research base”.
The commission has proposed to dedicate 80 billion euros ($107.7 billion) to research and innovation funding, an increase of 46 percent for this new framework program, according to Barroso.