madam president the initial goals of the lisbon strategy committed the eu to creating a knowledge economy an innovative economy a digital economy by the year twenty ten
well i have news for us all here in this packed chamber we are running out of time
you may not have noticed but we have made very little progress so far
before i became a politician i used to work with a lot of innovators and help lots of start-up companies
it was a real contrast coming to the world of european politics to see how we dealt with innovation
when we deal with innovation here we have committees we have strategy documents we have votes we have everything but innovation unless you consider more paper creation to be innovation
when you talk to the innovators out there the people who are going to create wealth in the european union and across the globe what they want is for governments to keep out of the way
it is time the looters of government stopped draining the life-blood of companies
