At an EU summit on 17 June, most East European countries will try to secure national R&D targets lower than the EU-wide average of 3% of GDP proposed by the European Commission in its 'Europe 2020' strategy.
The countries' demands are hardly surprising given huge national disparities in research spending.
In Bulgaria, for instance, only 0.15% of GDP is spent on R&D. The country's education minister, Sergey Ignatov, recently said he could not figure out how the impoverished country could raise R&D financing to more than 0.6%, reported Dnevnik, EurActiv's partner publication in Bulgaria.
In Romania, President Traian Basescu said in late April that his country would be unable to attain the R&D spending target of 3% of GDP by 2020, set out in the EU's new 'Europe 2020' strategy. Romanian authorities later came up with a more "realistic" figure of 2%, EurActiv Romania reported.
In Slovakia, the government has set a goal of investing 1.8% of its GDP on research by 2015. According to government data, Slovakia is now spending around 1.2% of its GDP on R&D and innovation.
According to government data, Hungary spends approximately 0.9% of its GDP on R&D and innovation each year. Looking only at public resources, the country spent €0.4 billion on R&D in 2008 – or 0.5% of GDP. As the country has a new government, few details have emerged as to how the cabinet intends to achieve the R&D goals.
In Poland, according to official data, the country only spent 0.56% of its GDP on R&D in 2006. Statistics also show that Poland, the biggest of the EU newcomers with its 38.2 million population, submits half as many patents as the Czech Republic, which has a population of 10.5 million.
EU-wide goal, differing national targets
The 3% target for investment in R&D is for the EU as a whole. Some older members like Sweden or Finland have exceeded the target already, while most newcomers from Eastern Europe are lagging behind.
The European Commission proposed, and EU leaders agreed, that each country should set different, ambitious but realistic national targets, taking into account their national starting points, said Commission spokesperson Mark English.
The exact national targets are likely to be endorsed by EU leaders in June, following discussions between the Commission and member states, which have been going very well, he added.
What appears certain is that for new member states such as Poland, the final targets will be considerably below 3%, while for some leading countries like Sweden, they will be significantly higher than 3%, the spokesperson explained.
The Czech Republic, however, appears to challenge the perception that East Europeans will be unable to reach the 3% target by 2020. Surprisingly, the caretaker government proposed a higher national target than the more modest 2.3% proposed by the European Commission.
Last year, the country spent around 1.54% of GDP on R&D, according to OECD figures. Yet the government believes it can do even more and has set itself the more ambitious goal of 2.7% by 2020.
Public vs. private?
In all countries, governments are discussing how to break down their national targets between various sectors – public, private and EU structural funds. Such details are often regarded as confidential, but in some cases the authorities have revealed their intentions.
In Romania, President Basescu said the state would contribute to a third of the target, while the private sector will be expected to provide the remaining two thirds (EurActiv 27/04/10).
In Slovakia too, the government predicted that two-thirds of its 1.8% research target would be funded by the private sector. Some consider this a bold statement, considering that around 52% of funding currently comes from public sources, only 34% comes from private sources, and the remaining 14% comes from foreign finance.
Who will make it up?
It remains to be seen who will foot the bill if several countries remain a long way below the 3% average. A large country like France, which would be expected to invest considerably more on research, invested only 2.2% of its GDP in R&D in 2001. Instead of rising, this figure has been decreasing ever since. In 2007, only 2.08% of France's GDP was invested in R&D, around half of which came from the private sector.
According to Eurostat, the best performer in R&D investment for 2007 is Sweden with 3.6%. No other country surpassed the 3% threshold. Austria was the second-best performer with 2.56%.
France spends around €40 million per year on R&D, while Germany spends €61 million. In comparison, the US spends $269 million.
