Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-17-Speech-3-289"
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"en.20000517.14.3-289"2
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". – Mr President, I have to say with great regret that I disagree with my colleague, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, on one point, namely this: if there is any end worth pursuing in human life it is knowledge for knowledge’s own sake. If there is any impulse which contributes to good research it is the impulse of pure curiosity. It has been work done out of pure curiosity for the sake of knowledge as an end in itself which has, in the end, produced the big spin-offs that make a real difference.
I agree with her, however, that it is not enough to justify spending public money on the ground that somebody suffers from acute curiosity. Therefore, it is the promise of long-term applicability and long-term economic contribution that justifies the expenditure of public funds. But we must remember that public funds will not be well spent unless they are spent on people who have the drive of curiosity and the commitment to knowledge for its own sake. That is something which we in Europe forget at our peril. It is mentioned in clauses ‘n’ and ‘o’ of the preamble. I am very grateful for that.
Indeed I am very grateful to Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel for the way in which she has worked into the report of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy practically all the points that were contained in the draft opinion from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for which I was responsible and which is the reason for my addressing you tonight. The whole is better than the sum of its two parts. It was very good of her to work it in so effectively.
The amendments by Mr Pietrasanta and Mrs Maes, which add the points about sustainability, environmental goods and health, to the other economic points that we have been making, are important and should be adopted.
There is indeed a European crisis in research funding. We must increase it. It must go up to 3% from the current pathetic 1.8% – about half of what our Japanese and American friends and competitors put in.
Legal devices are important. We should improve the European patent. Subsidiarity is all-important; subsidiarity, as the Commissioner has said, in its broadest sense – regions contributing to research as well as Member States and the Commission, right down to the research team. They are the people at the sharp end. We must make sure that we never have systems of research support that are so over-burdened with bureaucracy, with application mechanisms so difficult to penetrate that we use resources in applying for research funds that should be spent doing the research itself. Simplicity is all and subsidiarity means, in this context, simplicity and an appropriate period of research review.
We also need other things. We need due and proper attention to mobility and all that goes with it, proper research careers throughout Europe, the chance for people to gain employment in research and to move freely. The omens are not entirely good. We have seen, in the case of the foreign language lecturers in Italy, that 12 years have passed with immobility enshrined in European law because the right to free movement without regard to nationality has been denied and has not yet been effectively enforced by the Commission. We really must insist that improvement is achieved here and is carried through from the teaching community into the closely allied research community.
In short, we must do at Community and Union level the things that can only be done at those levels and push the rest down. All that is stated in paragraph 40 of the report. We must also be better at developing and applying the knowledge we achieve. My colleague in Edinburgh, Professor Salter, has developed a device for destroying mines safely. It has never been taken up industrially. Many good ideas that are developed do not get taken up. That is also vital."@en1
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