Technology in Europe's future

Abstract

European fears in the 1960's of U.S. technological domination have proved to be unfounded. The continiung U.S. lead in aerospace and defense technology has not spread to other sectors. European companies and governments have steadily upgraded their capabilities in civilian science and technology. However, hopes that the “imperatives of modern technology” would stimulate closer European integration have been disappointed. There remain, however, very severe imperfections in the utilization of Europe's resources in the “strategic” technological sectors; communications, aerospace, enerrgy. The immediate action required to deal with them is not the creation of “European” companies with ownership and top-level managerial control spread amongst a number of countries; nor the creation of large European budgets to finance various sectors of science and technology. Both these things might eventually happen, but only long after other changes, namely, the acceptance of a far greater degree of technological interdependence amongst European countries, resulting from the integration of Europe's public markets, competition amongst European firms to satisfy these markets, and — in certain sectors — agreement on what Europe's objectives should be. Reaching this stage requires that the technologically weaker European countries, like Italy, be convinced that such integration will not make their weakness permanent. It requires also that Britain, Finance and Germany be much more willing than in the past to become technologically dependent on one another. If these requirements are met, European firms should become competitive in world markets in nuclear energy, telecommunications and emerging technologies to satisfy social needss such as transportation, medical care and education. Europe would be able to satisfy its requirements economically for a significant proportion of its conventional military equipment, including aircraft. But it would be an illusion to expect European integration to result in parity with the USA in aerospace technology. This could happen only if Europe itself were a superpower with strategic ambitions similar to those of the USA and the USSR. It would also be an illusion to expect the USA, in spite of its professed policy of encouraging European integration, to be happy about some of the consequences of technological integration.