Government has smothered innovation in Europe. The solution from the geniuses in the EU? More government. From Thomas Kolbe at zerohedge.com:
It was summit season again in Berlin. After crisis meetings with the automotive and steel industries, attention on Tuesday turned to the next trouble spot: the digital economy. So far, EU regulators have literally strangled it.
Grand reception at Berlin’s EUREF campus: Around 900 participants from politics, business, and science across Europe traveled to the capital for the Digital Summit. Among the prominent speakers: Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, both currently facing stiff political headwinds at home.
EU Europe has now officially entered crisis mode on the political level as well. The sheer number of economic summits reflects this and bodes ill for the coming years. Looking at the digital economy, which has initiated the next major economic revolution, one must conclude: the panic mode in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin is justified.
The technological gap between the Eurozone economy and competitors in the U.S. and China appears, at present, unbridgeable. Revolution? Not in sight.
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A glance at the raw numbers provides a clear sense of the technological hiatus: In the U.S., over $340 billion is being invested in artificial intelligence this year, following $244 billion in 2024. In China, the private sector mobilizes roughly $100 billion to upgrade digital processes.
The EU, even when generously including the U.K., reaches barely €25 billion—a negligible share on a global scale.
Amazon alone invests roughly $118 billion, almost five times the capital of the entire EU economy, which can only muster its small contribution through roughly 50% public funding. Politically embarrassing, economically disastrous.
