Innovation in The European Union Within The Framework of The Theory of Creative Destruction: An Overview After The Global Financial Crisis 2008

Innovations are vital for economic development. Schumpeter, the famous economic theorist who drew attention to the innovation activities, was the first to reveal that capitalism has a structure that realizes development through innovations. Along with the 2000s, the European Union adopted a Schumpeterian approach and launched the Lisbon Strategy, however, this strategy has not been successful for various reasons. In this context, the Schumpeterian theory of “creative destruction” is well suited for evaluating innovation activities in the European Union. The main purpose of the study is to analyze the innovation activities in the European Union through research and development expenditures, business research and development expenditures, and the numbers of patent applications in the context of the theory of “creative destruction” put forward by Schumpeter. In this context, it was tried to reveal the Schumpeterian innovation capacity of the European Union between 2008 and 2018 in line with the data obtained from Eurostat. As a result of the study, it was concluded that innovation activities in the European Union could not fully realize the creative destruction effect and that there is a serious texture incompatibility in terms of economic structures within the EU member countries.