Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-03-11-Speech-2-052"
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"en.20080311.8.2-052"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, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you all for your excellent levels of cooperation. In our work that is always vital in order to achieve a good result.
There has been talk about setting up an Institute of Innovation and Technology for almost three years now, and time has passed because the Commission’s original proposal has needed a good number of improvements made to it. Parliament’s committees, especially the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, have given the proposal a new look. Parliament and the Council have been guaranteed greater powers without, however, endangering the EIT’s autonomy. The election of its governing board is more closely reminiscent of the election system employed with the European Research Council, which the scientific world has commended. As someone just said, it has also been confirmed that small and medium-sized enterprises will be able to participate in the work of the EIT and enjoy its benefits. These are where the impact on employment will be greatest and it is precisely these which have the flexibility and efficiency needed for the swift implementation of innovations.
Above all, it is the Institute’s priorities that have changed. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology, as its name suggests, is to focus on innovation. The two other elements in the knowledge triangle, education and research, are important, but innovation clearly represents the triangle’s apex; it is its point of focus and its main objective. We will need to invest in quality education and basic research in the future but, as we all know, innovation is Europe’s Achilles heel.
The Americans file over a third more patent applications with the European Patent Office than the Europeans themselves. We need more knowledge-intensive products and services.
In 10 years China has increased its share of GNP spent on research and development from around zero to a current level of one and a half per cent. In as many as 17 EU Member States the share is lower than in China. The share of the EU’s GNP accounted for by investment in research and development is still significantly lower than that of the other world economic powers.
More alarming still is the fact that here we have seen our share of investment decline, not rise, in recent years. More or less as bad is the state of venture capital. The Lisbon Strategy calls for a dynamic approach. Why do we not have faith in our own schemes? High levels of education and research produce far too few commercial and functional applications, or at least they are put into effect less often than in competitor countries. Our patent system is also complicated. Should the brain drain not be a serious matter for a Union aiming to be the world’s leading knowledge-based economy?
The EIT will not eliminate these problems, but it may ease them through the example it sets. It will provide the business sector with a new kind of link to cooperation in education and research. It will create opportunities for the commercial exploitation of research, and it will establish closer bilateral ties. The EIT will not become a super university which keeps the best researchers for itself; Parliament’s amendments guarantee that. After the initial problems which emerged with funding, the situation is now clear. One of the Knowledge and Innovation Communities I have proposed will concentrate on information and communications technology. We are already receiving significant amounts of money from the business world for it. Funding is therefore not a problem. Investigations and trials alone are not enough: we need cooperation, and for that purpose the EIT has been established.
The excellent compromise reached with the Council is such a favourable one that we can state we are in favour of it, and I would therefore ask everyone to show their support for it in the vote which is to start soon. I thank you all."@en1
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