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European competitiveness

European competitiveness is the argument about why companies founded in the European Union grow more slowly, spend less on research and relocate abroad more often than their US and Chinese counterparts, and about which public and private instruments could change that.

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Overview

The competitiveness question breaks into a chain of five links: research spending, commercialisation, scale-up financing, market scale, and regulatory cost, each with its own instrument and its own decision maker. Belgium performs on the first link, spending 3.36% of GDP on research and development in 2024, the second highest research intensity in the European Union after Sweden, and the Leuven institute imec was among the research organisations consulted for the Draghi report. The break shows up further down the chain: EU companies spent EUR 270 billion less on research and innovation than their US counterparts in 2021, no EU company with a market capitalisation over EUR 100 billion has been built from scratch in the last fifty years, and of 147 unicorns founded in Europe between 2008 and 2021, 40 moved their headquarters abroad. The financing link is where Bjorn Tremmerie sits as Head of Venture Capital and Impact Investing at the European Investment Fund, and his complaint is about allocation: one euro out of four invested globally in early stages already lands in Europe, while institutional investors keep neglecting at scale the opportunity of investing in European venture.

Stated facts & numbers

  • People on techwiki tied to this concept: 13 people, 0 companies
  • Videos discussing the theme: 31 videos across Belgian tech and business channels
  • Belgian research intensity: 3.36% of GDP in 2024, second in the European Union after Sweden at 3.57%
  • Investment gap named by the Draghi report: EUR 750 to 800 billion of additional investment per year, 4.4-4.7% of EU GDP in 2023
  • EU companies above EUR 100 billion built from scratch in fifty years: None; all six US companies valued above EUR 1 trillion were created in that period
  • European unicorns that relocated headquarters: 40 of the 147 founded in Europe between 2008 and 2021, most of them to the US
  • Research and innovation spending gap with US companies: EUR 270 billion less in 2021
  • European Innovation Council Pathfinder budget: EUR 256 million for 2024, against USD 4.1 billion for the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • Industrial deployment announced since the European Chips Act proposal: About EUR 100 billion, mostly supported by Member States under state aid control
  • Antwerp Declaration for a European Industrial Deal: Presented 20 February 2024 in Antwerp by 73 business leaders from 17 sectors; over 1,300 organisations across 25 sectors now support it
  • Regulatory instrument Belgian operators cite most: Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the AI Act, in force 1 August 2024, general-purpose AI model obligations from 2 August 2025
  • Share of global early-stage venture capital landing in Europe: One euro out of four, per Bjorn Tremmerie of the European Investment Fund
  • KBC operational-risk capital: EUR 2.5 billion held against a maximum annual loss of EUR 29 million over ten years; that capital could back over EUR 40 billion of credit
  • Belgian research institute consulted for the Draghi report: imec, the Interuniversitair Micro-Electronica Centrum in Leuven

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