Salzburg (Austria): Europe must open up its economies to the sort of risk-oriented entrepreneurship that turns ideas into marketable products if it is to compete with the United States, politicians and business leaders said at an international economic forum in Salzburg on September 17.

The panel also said that European states must invest more in education to improve workers' productivity and focus less on technology and more on the content to be provided by new and improved means of communications.

Europeans on the panel stressed however that with all these changes Europe should not aim to imitate the United States but work to keep its model of a dynamic economy that still benefits all social groups.

The World Economic Forum that opened on September 16 in the central Austrian town of Salzburg, Mozart's birthplace, had published a report that said EU countries lag in performance behind the United States.

"There is no beating around the bush. Europe continues to under-perform, intra-regional differences notwithstanding," said the forum's chief economist Peter Cornelius.

"Over the last decade, annual economic growth (in the EU) averaged around 2.5 per cent, almost one percentage point less than in the United States," he said.

On September 17, Alistair Johnston of the British company Global Markets said his work group at the forum had felt that there was a "lack of vision and a lack of strategy in the EU".

"Reducing barriers is not a competitive strategy," he said about the nature of most economic reforms in EU states.

American Robert Lloyd, European manager for the US technology giant Cisco, said Europeans have to develop a "company culture of risk-taking. They must encourage the concept that failure is a good thing."

Barry Nalebuff, a management professor from the prestigious US university Yale, said, Europeans have to work on "bringing ideas into the marketplace" more quickly than US firms do.

He said this must take place at the "local level," with entrepreneurs working with universities and other research centres.

Nalebuff said, "The problem in Europe is that the entrepreneur is not a hero. Europeans think that if you succeed it's dirty."

However, Erkki Liikanen, European commissioner for enterprise and information society and who is from Finland, Europe's most competitive country according to some rankings, said that "in Europe people accept success only if it comes after some pain."

He said European firms have been "too fascinated by technology, and have not focused enough on content."

Liikanen said however that Europeans should not throw out their economic model. "We want to guarantee basic education for all," he said.

"Social inclusion and a dynamic economy. We must have both at the end of the day," Liikanen said.

Italian Innovation and Technology Minister Lucio Stanco said that the US and Europe were different and that this was good.

"Being more competitive doesn't mean being more American, and that is the beauty," Stanca said.