An attempt.

But the EU budget is much, much smaller than the US federal budget:

EU: $150 billion for 2014

US: $3000 billion for 2014

And the barriers between national markets in the EU are much steeper than the ones between state markets in the US.

150 billion i still a good amount of money. The problem with EU funding is in the objectives:

- Vaguely defined, so they open a lot of room for lobbying and corruption

- It is hard to align them to a startup agenda and the administrative overhead is often prohibitive

I wish it was more like a venture fund, but one that doesn't take equity.

Just my two cents.

Those goals are vaguely defined because they're a compromise. The EU generally works by consensus, they're trying to herd 28 (soon to be 27) cats.

And it is a legal liability as you can quickly get investigated for misspending the funds.