Brussels, 07/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - Speaking in Dublin on Tuesday 6 May on the sidelines of a meeting with the Irish minister responsible for education and training, Ciaran Cannon, and his counterpart for communications, energy and natural resources, Pat Rabbitte, Digital Strategy Commissioner Neelie Kroes called for a better environment for start-ups. She says that start-ups should be prioritised more in the European research and innovation agenda. During roundtable discussions with a number of start-up leaders and accompanied by Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE, Belgium), the commissioner stated that, “the EU should be more flexible in funding start-ups”.
Commissioner Kroes said that innovation in Europe should follow its own course and companies should not copy what is done elsewhere but rather develop their own qualities: “I get fed up every time someone says we need a European Silicon Valley. Don't copy, start your own exclusively”. She also expressed her pleasure that the “start-up revolution” was taking place almost everywhere in Europe (Dublin, Berlin, London, Amsterdam and Paris) and not just in one or two places. She regretted that the biggest fear among European entrepreneurs was failure, which prevented them from starting up companies and noted: “I've learnt more from my mistakes than my successes. There needs to be a mindset change towards failure”. Finally, on the question of skills, the commissioner pointed out the difficulty employers had in finding skilled people in the digital sector, despite the exceptionally high rates of unemployment in Europe. She said that it was imperative that digital skills were taught in schools so that the opportunities provided by the digital sector were not wasted, raising the spectre of a “lost generation” with massive rates of unemployment among young people. The commissioner affirmed that women needed to be encouraged to begin careers in the digital sector and pointed out that a lot of work had to be done in educational to change women's mindsets.
Guy Verhofstadt also argued for a more digitalised Europe, with more European resources going to digital infrastructure. He highlighted that, “this year, we shall spend €1.1 billion on digital infrastructure. But by comparison, the budget for agriculture is €300 billion”. (IL)