EU's Barroso calls for 10-year plan on smart economy

Feb 10, 2010, 16:58 GMT

Brussels - The European Union must make its economy smarter by putting more money into science, engineering, research and development in the next decade, the head of the bloc's executive wrote Wednesday ahead of a key summit.

EU leaders are set on Thursday to discuss ways to pull the bloc out of the trough of lame growth and high unemployment into which it has fallen, after they failed to live up to previous ambitions of becoming the world's highest-tech economy by 2010.

'By taking bold action we can ... avoid the trap of a decade of 'sluggish' growth and high unemployment which would reduce our standard of living, put enormous strain on our social systems and diminish Europe's role in the world,' Jose Manuel Barroso wrote in a briefing paper circulated ahead of the summit.

That 'bold action' should include national targets to boost spending on research and development, improve the quality of education and cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions - all goals which will demand a huge pool of qualified technicians.

'It is important to address the major shortfall we have in mathematics, science and engineering,' Barroso wrote.

Barroso heads the European Commission, the EU's executive, which controls the bloc's 130-billion-euro (178-billion-dollar) annual budget and drafts and enforces its laws.

As part of the push for more economic growth, the commission will in the next decade crack down on national barriers to free trade and business, spend the budget money in more productive areas and push for more trade liberalization overseas, Barroso wrote.

Thursday's summit is billed as a first debate among EU leaders on the future 10-year plan. Discussions are tipped to run until June.

The summit is to be the first chaired by the new president of the Council of EU member states, Herman Van Rompuy, who in a separate letter proposed seven steps to make the EU economy more dynamic. He also called for national and EU targets on issues such as research.

However, the two letters hinted at a potential clash between the EU's two most powerful officials.

Van Rompuy wrote that 'only the European Council (of national leaders) is capable of delivering and sustaining a common European strategy for more growth and more jobs.'

But Barroso wrote that the council 'should provide overall guidance for the strategy, on the basis of commission proposals.'