Competitiveness Gap of the European Union Member Countries in the Context of Europe 2020 Strategy

This paper is addressing issues of the competitiveness gap of the European Union member countries in the context of Europe 2020 strategy's smart growth. Authors are examining current competitiveness situation when economic performance of some countries are significantly better than others and how does it fit in the competitiveness framework set by Europe 2020 strategy. To have a closer look at the smart growth of European Union member countries authors examine R&D expenditures and their impact on patents and high-technology share in exports as one of the indicators of the competitiveness.