ABSTRACT
Past decades have witnessed the parallel development of industrial policy at a number of levels-regional, national and European Union (EU). Despite the growing integration of the economies within the EU there has been little systematic consideration of how these policies relate to each other both in terms of objectives and effects. In many cases, elements of industrial policy, such as competition policy or regional policy, contain areas of overlap at European, national and regional levels. In addition, there are instances where the objectives of different strands of European industrial policy contain conflicting elements. This issue has come to the fore in relation to EU policy on research and technological development where recent studies (Kay 1991, 1993; Martin 1994) have pointed to possible contradictions between the EU’s competition and technology policies. Indeed, this problem was highlighted in the EC White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, which calls for ‘the establishment of a concerted approach to strategic alliances, the uncontrolled development of which could result in the creation of oligopolistic situations prejudicial to competition.’ (CEC 1993) A similar potential conflict emerges from the Commission’s 1994 proposals on industrial competitiveness policy which identify both the promotion of industrial co-operation and the promotion of fair competition as key priority areas for policy action.
