Paul Meller, Brussels

Around €300 million looks set to be slashed from the European Union’s 2008 research and development budget, and re-channelled into the flagship Galileo satellite project.

The European Union inched closer to creating a European Institute of Technology this week, when ministers to dedicate up to €308.7 million to the project.

European policymakers are largely to blame for the sorry state of innovation in Europe, according Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer.

The European Research Council was inundated with around three times the expected number of applications for its first ever call for proposals, which closed last week.

In a nailbiting vote on Wednesday, MEPs adopted a law on advanced therapies that includes treatments resulting from embryonic stem cell research.

European lawmakers are set to sign off on an EU-wide law on advanced therapies. But an attempt to limit the law has sparked a last-minute lobbying drive from the industry to try to avert the exclusion of stem cell therapies.

The European Commission is proposing a compromise to break decades of deadlock in the effort to create a European Union-wide patent.

A draft European law to fight counterfeiting and piracy has been narrowed to exclude patent infringements – but many other legitimate activities look set to be criminalised.

As Germany takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union from Finland, there's little evidence of new thinking about innovation.

Boosting innovation in the European Union may be a top political priority but heads of state and government from the 25 countries in the Union had little time for the topic at this week’s summit in Brussels.