Italy lags behind EU countries in research spending Istat reports that Italy spent less than 20 million euros 2009

(ANSA) - Rome, December 18 - Italy has been one of the most sluggish spenders on research in the European Union, the national statistical agency Istat said Tuesday.Italy spent the equivalent of 1.26% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) on research, compared with an EU average of 2.01% of GDP, according to 2009 data compiled by Istat in a chapter of its "Research, Innovation and Technology Information Italian Statistical Yearbook 2012".Overall in 2009, Italy invested just 19.209 million euros on research, including funding from business, public institutions, non-profit institutions and universities.Italy wasn't the worst at research investments: following it were Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Malta, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Slovakia, Romania and Latvia. Among investment leaders were Finland, Sweden and Denmark, which were all well above the EU average, with investments of more than 3% of GDP.The average investment of around 3% of GDP were made by Germany and Austria, followed by France, Belgium and Slovenia.