Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

The European Commission has identified five key enabling technologies (KETs) as priority fields to improve European industrial competitiveness. But as many world regions state the growth in domestic sectors for these technologies of enormous importance for their economic development, a fierce international competition with high policy intervention exists. In difference to these other regions, the government support for technologies and industries in European Member States is highly regulated and limited by the European state aid control. In the present paper, some current innovation and industrial policy instruments for two KETs (micro-/nanoelectronics and industrial biotechnology) in Europe in comparison to other world regions are analyzed. Particularly, the impact of the state aid control for policy instruments as well as its appropriateness of this framework from a “modern” industrial or systems of innovation policy perspective are discussed. The results show, that in other world regions higher policy interventions can be observed for investment incentives and for some R&D policy instruments compared to Europe. In contrast, demand-side policies have presently limited importance for both technologies. In overall, the EU state aid control influences intensively innovation and industrial policy for both technologies. Some policy options for the adjustments of the state aid framework exist, but high challenges for implementation arise.