President Emmanuel Macron said today: "Europe is experiencing a divergence in its pace of development. Compared to China and the United States, Europe’s progress is too slow. Over the coming years, Europe’s core challenge will be to accelerate innovation with greater intensity. In the past two decades, our per capita GDP has fallen behind that of the United States—over two-thirds of this gap can be attributed to insufficient innovation. Artificial intelligence and robotics present new opportunities, creating room for societal adaptation and transformation."
Commentary: Macron’s remarks reflect a prevailing anxiety among Europe’s political leadership. Yet attributing economic lag primarily to a lack of innovation sidesteps deeper structural challenges. Europe possesses strong foundational research capabilities and is not lacking in cutting-edge technology. The real constraints lie not merely in R&D capacity, but in the ecosystem for commercialization. The United States benefits from a vibrant venture capital market and a large, unified domestic market that enables rapid experimentation and scaling by firms; China boasts a complete industrial supply chain and a massive consumer base, allowing new technologies to be deployed and iterated quickly—conditions that remain absent in Europe. Meanwhile, the energy shock triggered by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the fiscal burden of high welfare systems, persistent demographic aging, and the fragmented nature of national policies across EU member states collectively hinder economic momentum. While placing emphasis on AI and robotics points toward a potential path forward, turning these ambitions into tangible economic outcomes will require overcoming substantial practical barriers—including market fragmentation, inadequate access to capital, and limited computing power.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1877892889925833/
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