Brussels, 20/10/2008 (Agence Europe) - Clusters provide a fertile business environment for companies, especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), to collaborate with research institutions, suppliers, customers and competitors located in the same geographical area. They are also powerful drivers for development and innovation. Europe does not lack clusters: the European Cluster Observatory has recently identified around 2000 statistically significant agglomerations employing 38% of the European workforce. However, the persistent market fragmentation, weak industry-research linkages and insufficient cooperation within the EU imply that clusters in the EU do not always have the necessary critical mass and innovation capacity to sustainably face global competition.
In a communication adopted on Friday 17 October, the European Commission calls for a strategy to promote the emergence of world-class clusters in the European Union. According to the Commission, a framework likely to support a cluster-friendly environment should be based on: improving the functioning of the internal market and removing remaining barriers, in particular those hampering knowledge flows, mobility of qualified staff or access to finance across borders; establishing a high-level European Cluster Policy Group to further explore ways on how best assist member states in supporting the emergence of world-class clusters; expanding the policy dialogue initiated by the European Cluster Alliance among members states and EU regions for exchanging practices for designing better cluster policies; further developing the European Cluster Observatory into a full-fledged service to clusters and innovative enterprises for fostering transnational cooperation by developing partnerships across the EU; launching a pilot scheme offering training programmes and platform for cooperation of cluster managers. To fully benefit from this action, the Commission also wants to highlight cluster support initiatives in cohesion, policy and the R&D Research Framework Programme for competitiveness and innovation. (E.H./transl.rh)