In a letter dated Friday 27 March, Cristian-Silviu Buşoi (ECR, Romania), the chair of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), submitted a series of recommendations for dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic to Thierry Breton, the Commissioner for the Internal Market, and Mariya Gabriel, the Commissioner for Innovation and Research.
Following discussions that had previously taken place during a teleconferencing meeting between the coordinators of the political groups, the committee called on the European Commission to support the European medical and pharmaceutical industry to grow substantially in both the short and long term if it needs to, while working to maintain the network of SMEs. They also mentioned the strategies that the Commission has recently presented (see EUROPE 12443/7).
With regard to digital matters, the ITRE Committee called for increased European support to develop connectivity in Europe as quickly as possible (for both broadband and mobile telephone networks) in order to absorb the massive surge in data, as is currently being generated as a result of populations being confined at home (see EUROPE 12451/26). In general terms, they called on the Commission to develop digital proposals to improve European response capacity in the event of a health crisis.
Lastly, they called for increased research capacity through the Horizon Europe 2021-2027 programme to tackle the current pandemic and any future pandemics.
Within this context, Buşoi has invited the relevant Commissioners to a videoconferencing meeting to review the current position and consider further action. No date has yet been set for the meeting.
On Thursday 2 April, Breton will hold a videoconferencing discussion with the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)