The magazine Nature has a great article on the current state of affairs in European research and education. In the article, Lord Patten (Chancellor of the Universities of Oxford and of Newcastle, UK) explains how Europe, in the last decades of prosperity and security has failed the education of its citizens and chaired over the demise of European brain power. In the modern information age with our knowledge-based economies, this negligence may well prove disastrous for the EU. He goes on to praise the newly founded European Research Council and how increasing its budget would be a step in the right direction (see also this article).
Another noteworthy point was his comparison of the US spending on R&D (3% GDP) with a European average of about half that, despite of the exorbitant US military spending. Especially amusing was his reference to the condescending way Europeans view US culture in the light of how much more the US spends on education. As a note of caution I would add that most European countries take much better care of their poor than the US and the social budget is eating up a lot of the funds which should go towards education. On the other hand, one would think that it should be possible to spend as much on the poor as the US is spending on weapons and still be able to match US R&D spending. But how should I know?