Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-09-Speech-3-278"
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"en.20050309.18.3-278"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as shadow rapporteur for the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Locatelli, for her work and I should above all like to congratulate her on successfully achieving a collective effort in the best possible spirit of collaboration, creating a firm foundation for us to continue to work together on the European research policy while awaiting the now imminent arrival of the seventh Framework Programme.
Research, which President Barroso has indicated to be one of the priorities of the revamped Lisbon Strategy, is the tool on which the knowledge-based society is founded. It is not just a strategic step but also an essential one for closing Europe’s competitive gap in terms of innovation and, consequently, economic growth, employment and sustainable development.
In order to catch up quickly, we have to invest greater resources, to the extent of doubling the funds available compared with the previous Framework Programme. Even then, that is not enough. In the context of the most ambitious objective, which is to provide the scientific community, industry and European society in general with the tools needed to strengthen and improve our research capacity, we need above all to use the funds better, with the aim of creating real centres of excellence that can attract our researchers, who are all too often forced to emigrate abroad.
Consolidating the European Research Area is important not only for our researchers and for their mobility, but also to attract investment, both public and private, European and non-European. That is a target that can be met primarily by directing resources towards traditionally strategic sectors for the European Union. With this report, Parliament hopes for thematic continuity with the sixth Framework Programme and an enhanced spirit of transnational collaboration. The European Research Area must be the catalyst for private investment.
In addition, great emphasis has been placed on small and medium-sized enterprises, precisely because of the particular industrial structure of our economy, which is predominantly characterised by an industrial fabric made up of productive areas that are unable to develop independent research projects. It therefore becomes essential to strengthen the dialogue that SMEs or associations of SMEs have with our universities and with the many European centres of excellence. Such a dialogue should lead to a more effective and fruitful transfer of technology.
The proposal to set up a European Research Council must be seen in this context. I support its aims, which include guiding basic research and guaranteeing not only its suitability but also its quality. I have, however, expressed my doubts both about the potential overlap with the remit of other European coordination bodies and institutes and about the funds to be devoted to setting up and running the Council itself.
Mr President, I shall finish by issuing the common challenge that research must become a real beacon of European competitiveness, a real action plan. If Europe does not make this choice, it runs the risk of being regarded as a weary, lumbering colossus, a continent that gets bogged down in talk and all too often bends its strategies to the individual interests of its Member States. I hope that this will be the decade of research, just as the last one was the decade of the single market."@en1
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