Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-25-Speech-2-373"
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"en.20070925.34.2-373"2
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substitute; Delegation for relations with the countries of Central America (2007-03-14--2009-07-13)3
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"Mr President, the European Institute of Technology has been in preparation for more than a year and time has passed because the Commission’s original proposal needed improving considerably. Parliament’s committees, led by the Committee on Industry, Research and Industry, have been reworking the proposal to give it a new look. Parliament and the Council have been guaranteed more say in the matter, without jeopardising the EIT’s autonomy. The election of the EIT’s Governing Board will very much bring to mind the way the European Research Council was elected, and so the science world has been arguing over the procedure. Some attempt has been made to strengthen the opportunities SMEs might have to participate. That is exactly where the impact on employment will be greatest, and that is exactly where we find the flexibility speedily to implement innovation.
A week ago the Commission announced a proposal to take cash away from administrative bureaucracy and to support agriculture, wine and potatoes if you like, and to put it into innovation. Should we not do that? It is an interesting idea. Crucial to the EIT’s fate now is the willingness of the Member States to finance it, Member States which are not investing enough.
Do we all stand behind the Lisbon objectives? This will be a test of that. The EIT may produce more added value with a view to achieving the Lisbon objectives, but only if it does not cannibalise the Lisbon programmes. The Union needs innovation, ladies and gentlemen. People need it; our future needs it. Why would we not support necessity?
The European Institute of Innovation and Technology will, as its name suggests, focus on innovation. The two other elements of the ‘knowledge triangle’, education and research, will remain, but innovation is clearly the apex of the triangle and is the priority. Innovation must be given special attention because it is innovation which is Europe’s Achilles heel.
It is incredible that the Americans file over a third more patent applications with the European Patent Office, our very own patent office, than we do ourselves. This is a good place to start. The sceptics may ask whether the Union will be competitive without innovation or increasing innovation. Well, we are talking about inventions and processes which can be widely introduced in the world of business. Do we not need more? We had better get a move on because the United States is forging ahead and China is not far behind us. The Lisbon Strategy is also urging speed. Why do we not even have faith in our own strategic decisions?
Research and development accounts for an increasingly lower share of the Union’s GNP than in the other world economic powers. We spend less than 2% on it, whilst the United States spends almost 3%, Japan more than 3%, and just Sweden and Finland spend almost 4% on it.
Our high standards of education, training and research, however, produce far too few commercial applications, or at least they are not realised in Europe but in the United States – there especially. The problem obviously has many aspects and relates in part to how willing universities and colleges are to cooperate with the business world, together with the fact that our patenting system is awkward, and so on.
Of course, the EIT will not eliminate these problems, but it may to some extent ease them. The brain drain should be something to be taken seriously. Why is that? Because we are trying to become the world’s leading knowledge-based economy and brains are draining away!
The EIT will offer the private sector a new kind of contact with the educational and research community. It will help create opportunities for the commercial exploitation of the results of research and strengthen cooperation in both directions. The Institute will not become a super-university which robs top universities of their best researchers and scholars. Parliament’s amendments will see to that. The EIT will be able to offer the best universities and colleges a new and long-lasting opportunity to work closely with companies which are hungry for innovation. It may help the best universities to attract the world’s best and most able students, scholars and researchers so that they may develop and utilise research and innovation and the processes and methods involved in its management working side by side with top companies.
It cannot be denied that the proposal contains areas which overlap with current instruments. The technology platforms under the Seventh Framework Programme and the broader-scale JTIs, as long as they are brought into operation, are largely based on the same principles as outlined for the EIT. The same goes for the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme.
There may be some slight degree of overlap, but Europe is not witness to too much innovation but too little, so there is room for new competing enterprise. It is all a matter of how the EIT fits into the current jigsaw. I believe that it can be made to fit into the European research scene without offending against that environment. We have added a trial stage with evaluations to the project and increased the powers of Parliament."@en1
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