The European Commission has published its Index of Regional Innovation,

It covers 238 regions measured with 17 indicators. The Basque Country is lagging behind in 132 while Navarra is worse at 145.

The Basque entrepreneurial class and its Christian Democratic political machine has likens itself to be a mini-Germany. Well, Bilbao is no Berlin.

Even East Germany (outside of Berlin) scores higher than the Basque regions. Southern Germany is unreachable, so far ahead as they are. And even northern Portugal leaves it behind,

Within the Spanish state, while Catalonia and the Basques are ahead of the rest, it does not bode well for the 2020s and 2030s.

The Index measures things like the number of doctorates, the amount of patents registered, investment in research and development, the use of new technologies by small and medium scale enterprises etc…

The Achilles heel are the small businesses. They are being bypassed by the Basque administration.

The EU shows a clear North-South divide with the regions south of the Pyrenees and the Alps struggling to keep up. Spain, south of the Ebro, is back of the class with much of Eastern Europe.

Switzerland ( not in the EU) is ahead, along with southeast England, Baden-Wuurtemberg (southwest Germany, Holland and populated Scandinavia.

Another way of looking it is to see Zurich and Ticino as ahead, and Helsinki, Stockholm, Hovestaden [Denmark) and Berlin.

Pro-Independence groups have been urging a scaling up of investment in R&D and the need to shake the political class out of its complacency. The self satisfied approach seems to prefer earning easy money on domestic infrastructure projects and remain in the middle of the industrial supply chains. Both are good earners but not enough to compete with the best.

It is precisely because pro independence groups understand this innovative vulnerability for small states in a dog-eat-dog world, that they keep saying the Basques need to look North (not South) and measure up against the Swiss, Germans and Scandinavians and improve to get level. It is unclear if there is sufficient awareness among the population of this strategic weakness. The recent elections suggest not.