Help me for the Plenary session tomorrow about Building a Europe for Business !

I just had a great meeting with George W. Mallinckrodt, President, Schroders, United Kingdom and Co-Chair of the European Economic Summit 2004 to prepare the Plenary session tomorrow about Building a Europe for Business.

As you know, we had another Session on Monday to prepare the Plenary, "Building a Business-Friendly Europe" where many people already contributed on the blog with great comments.

George W. Mallinckrodt, Giancarlo Bruno of the World Economic Forum and myself went through the ideas and suggestions that came out of the session and we found that we do not want to insist too much on the Plenary on the bad news but rather on the good news and be as optimistic as we can even though we will of course highlight the issues.

One of the suggestions that we want to focus on is the successes of Europe in certain areas of business and best practices, here are the ones that come quickly on top of my mind:

-Telecom in Nordic Countries
-Fashion, Design and Luxury sector (France, Italy)
-Retail and Distribution in The UK (Tesco), France (Promodes, Auchan) and Belgium (Delhaize)
-egovernment (Estonia)
-high percentage of entrepreneurs (Poland)
-"Broadband country" giving 100Mbps of Internet bandwidth to all citizens in Pau (France)
-Biotechnology was mentioned in comments for Germany, but I do not know enough about it can you help ?

I miss many others because of lack of time to prepare this note (I need to run to another session) or because I am too French (!), can you help me by adding in the comments any specific best practice in your European Countries (be as detailed as possible please) that we can quote tomorrow to insist on optimism about great things that happened in the EU ?

Thanks very much for your help !

Comments

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[versac]

Too late, I think.
But there are many examples of successful economic development, in many regions of Europe. Many of them work in a "cluster" way, bonding together research, education, economic development (venture capital, partnerships...). Examples are in Spain with the textile industry, or Italy with shoes...

In France, we have a lot to do. Small examples are trying to do so, but links between (public) research and education (universities, business and engineering schools) remain poor. Grenoble is doing a lot on Nanotechnologies.
But look at the plateau de Saclay, south of Paris (I bet you know where it is) : it could be a European silicon valley. 16.000 research people, many universities, top business schools and highly reputable engineer schools. But the ratio of venture creation remains low. In the Silicon valley, fot 10.000 researchers, there is a minimum of 100 company creations a years. In Saclay, the rate is 7 to 10 for 16.000...

We have to build better links between these worlds : education, research, business. The state can't play a role in here; it has to be led by smaller entities, such as the region in France.

[john chibuye]

We have start academy called youth academy and we train young boys and girls soccer.There so much of child defilments in zambia.My is orphans and vulnerable give good education,health,

[john chibuye]

Its good and i must register now to attend the forum.we are sport Ngo in lusaka,zambia.We are education,health,child rights,art and crafts activities .

[Stephen Johnston]

the link got chopped off...

http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/business_city/research_statistics/research_publications.htm

[Stephen Johnston]

You might suggest that some successes need Europe-wide consolidation for us to compete on the world stage, others need Europe-wide proliferation to encourage innovation from the bottom up.

An example of the former that's currently missing from your list is London's role as a global financial services hub. Europe's advantage of being the centre of time zones between Americas and Asia is here to stay, and UK's English language is quite an asset. Here's an extract from a recent City of London report with a few figures.
Good luck today!
Stephen

"We estimate that EU GDP in 2003 was €31 billion higher than it otherwise would have been without the cluster of global finance companies in the City. Without London, the EU would lose 18 per cent of its City-type business to competitors elsewhere in the world and a further 12 per cent would be lost altogether as higher costs make some transactions unviable."

http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/business_city/research_statistics/pdf/londons_import_eu_04exec.pdf

[Tao]

Some examples from the Netherlands:
- Agriculture
- Shipping (Rotterdam = world's largest port)
- "Water management", i.e. dams, dikes and water regulation technology. Don't laugh, its big business around the world. Think "saving Venice from drowning", "Palm-shaped artificial islands in Dubai", "preventing environmental problems like flooding", "saving endangered wetlands", etc.

[Loic]

Thank you for your comments !

[Ingmar Bornholz]

Two unique position of germany come to my mind: First it´s about building a "tradition-filled-brand". Though the term "made in germany" isn´t a brand of such power anymore as it was maybe 20 years ago - but when you ask people about "what is germany", you might often hear: Mercedes-Benz, Miele and Siemens. Of course these companies aren´t really german anymore, but they simply have this "touch". So, what about "Made in Europe" as a top-quality sign in the world?
Secondly I want to mention the way germany tries to reflect its 3rd Reich history. In my point of view it definitely is not enough what happens at german schools: every class has to go min. once to Auschwitz, to see, that this mustn`t happen again! But, the reflection and confrontation of this time is part in every german school´s curriculum; history has a quite big part in every childs life. I just can speak for myself, and all the friends I had at school: it was good to be confronted with all that (we have been to Auschwitz) and it definitely formed our charakters. Is it the same in other european-countries? I´m not quite sure. Greets to my dear town Warszawa.

[Olivier Travers]

Loïc, it's unclear how some of the industries you list as best practices are related to the idea of Europe as a common entity. Yes big French retailers and Italian luxury brands are successful outside their own country, but they export outside of the EU as well, and their success predates the common market anyway.

As far as best practices go, I'd look at how Ireland reshaped its policies to be business friendly in a way that has without a doubt benefited its citizens as well. Portugal and Spain also caught up quite nicely since the joined the EU, though the former is currently plateauing and exports mainly traditional goods. Spain has some companies such as El Cortes Ingles or Zara that are thriving outside of its borders. Interestingly, those are two retailers, as well as Ikea from Sweden and the forementioned French behemoths. Europeans are not bad at CPG either, with global leaders in cosmetics and processed food. But again, we know we have some big competitive European companies out there, but the question is, is their success related to the EU?

I'd look at the automotive market as an example of relatively successful pan-european industry-wide reshaping, both from a manufacturing and sales perspective (ok, there's too much manufacturing capacacity around, which hurts this industry, but this problem goes beyond Europe).

[Oliver Thylmann]

I think what I mentioned was Nano Technology, which is somewhere, where Europe is not behind in a technology it seems.

I actually read about it in the german version of technology review, the current issue.

A short summary in german is here: http://www.heise.de/tr/artikel/46592

In terms of support from the state(s), europe seems to be not far behind the US. (numbers in 2004, without differences in buying power, or industry money)

US: 850 Million
Japan: 800 Million
Europe: 740 Million
Germany: 290 Million

It seems that we are not really behind, talking about Europe here. There is also a Nano Forum for Europe: http://www.nanoforum.org/

As for Germany specifically I wouldn't know what we are specifically good at in relation to the other examples given. I also am likely not the person to talk about that, having lived the last 6 years of my school live in Brussels/Belgium. I would call myself European if I had to. Germany and Belgium are just flavors of the dish.