(dr) Yandex
The Old Continent is falling behind in the use of robots, warns an EU report. Europe’s share of the global market for technological and digital services has halved in the last decade.
A European Commission report obtained by the newspaper highlights Europe’s struggle to keep up with world leaders in the deployment of robotics and technological competitiveness.
The report, titled Annual Single Market and Competitiveness Report to 2025, reveals that Europe has on average 22 robots for every 1,000 employeeswhich puts it behind the United States (29) and South Korea (101).
The presentation of the report, which was supposed to be part of the EU’s “Competitiveness Measure”, was postponed due to a recent illness of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
The findings underscore the urgency for Europe to bolster its technology and robotics sectors to avoid falling further behind and signal a sharp decline in Europe’s share of the global technology and digital services market, which halved in the last decade to 10.8%. In contrast, the US market share increased to 38%.
Europe’s startup ecosystem also lags behind, with just 263 unicorns — far fewer than those established in the US (1,539) and China (387).
The report also criticizes the slow digitalization of Europe and limited access to risk capital: these are obstacles to the expansion of companies, according to the analysis based on the strategies proposed by the former President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, to face the challenges of competition.
