However, companies from
the European Union face new challenges and still suffer from handicaps in certain fields: - the new challeng
es take the form of mounting international competition, the f
aster spread of new technologies (the information society, biotechnologies and new materials), the growing importance of "qualitative" factors in competitiveness (training, research, patents, etc.), persistently high unemployment and the resh
...[+++]aping of markets brought about by the geopolitical upheaval (the transition of the countries of Eastern Europe to a market economy and the establishment of regional associations all over the world); - the persisting handicaps include the facts that European industry is underrepresented on markets in high-growth products and regions, that European manufacturing industry's productivity has been improving at a slower rate than that of its US and Japanese rivals and that the overall research effort remains too weak and must be tailored more closely to the needs of society and the market.Mais les entreprises de
l'Union européenne sont confrontées à de nouveaux défis et demeurent handicapées dans certains domaines. - les nouveaux défis s'expriment par une concurrence internationale de plus en plus vive, par l'accélération de la diff
usion des nouvelles technologies (société de l'information, biotechnologies, nouveaux matériaux), par le rôle de plus en plus important des facteurs de compétitivité "qualitatifs" (formation, recherche, brevets, etc.), par la persistance d'un chomage élevé, et par la redéfinition des marchés
...[+++] consécutive aux bouleversements géopolitiques (transition des pays de l'Est vers l'économie de marché, constitution "d'ensembles régionaux" au niveau mondial).
