Vincent van Quickenbourne, Minister of Economy, Belgium; Jennifer Blanke, Lead Economist, Director, Head of Centre for Global Competitiveness and Performance; Maire Geoghan-Quinn Commissioner for Research & Innovation The World Economic Forum has provided an analysis of Europe’s competitiveness to the Informal Council of European Union Economy Ministers. The Forum presented ministers at the request of the Belgian presidency during a meeting in Brussels on 30 September, with a benchmarking of the EU27 average against the United States and Asian tigers.

Together they discussed the implications of the Forum’s findings for future policy development across the EU. They also discussed various aspects of Europe's competitiveness strategy, ranging from increasing the efficiency of the internal market to green growth strategies.

The goal of the Informal Ministerial is to agree upon some of the key policy priorities that must be taken both at EU and national levels in order to raise Europe’s competitiveness.

The current EU president, Belgium, placed the Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report at the heart of the meeting. The 27 EU member states range throughout the Report’s competitiveness rankings. Five EU members are in the top-ten, with highest-ranked Sweden placed 2nd out of 139 economies. At the other extreme, a number of countries are ranked among the bottom half of all countries, with Greece the lowest ranked, at 83rd overall.

"The EU has top-performers amongst all of the parameters used in compiling the Global Competitiveness Index, meaning that EU member states could boost their competitiveness by adopting more of each other's best practices," said Vincent van Quickenbourne, Minister of Economy, Belgium.

The Rankings of the EU27 in the Global Competitiveness Index

EU27 GCR Rankings 2010