Cascading figures and an array of key dates for her hundred days: the European Commissioner-designate for Research, Start-ups and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva, came well prepared for her hearing in front of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry and Research (ITRE) on Tuesday 5 November.
Ms Zaharieva made simplification and access to finance for SMEs and start-ups a central part of her future policy in front of a captivated audience. “She ticks all the boxes”, said Christian Ehler (EPP, German), coordinator on the ITRE Committee, immediately saying she was “very convincing”. Dan Nica (S&D, Romanian) described the Bulgarian politician from the GERB party as “fit for the job”, supporting her voluntary approach to the research budget and the simplification of procedures for researchers.
More than on the details, the former Foreign Minister insisted on her willingness to involve stakeholders and MEPs in drawing up the future “European Innovation Act”. This strategy should improve the funding and independence of research while preventing the brain drain within and outside Europe.
Simplification shock. “SMEs account for 99% of European businesses and only 20% of Horizon Europe funding”, Ekaterina Zaharieva pointed out. One of the major obstacles is bureaucracy, which requires applicants to fill in around thirty documents in order to apply for funding, said Mr Nica.
The Commissioner-designate intends to propose a two-stage approach, which will first ask candidates to present their research project before completing the control forms. Nor is it right that it should take “238 days from the submission of an application to the signing of a contract; that’s far too long”, she said. If confirmed, she plans to launch a pilot project in 2025 to apply this two-stage procedure.
“Artificial intelligence should also help these companies to prepare their applications”, she hopes.
In any case, she plans to consult SMEs and start-ups in advance on what they expect from simplification at an “informal, very fluid” forum next January or February, “so as not to introduce reforms that are not what is expected”.
Financing. Regarding the future ‘European Innovation Act’, the Bulgarian Commissioner-designate showed she was determined to encourage Member States to respect the commitment - “made 23 years ago” - to devote 3% of their GDP to research and innovation (see EUROPE 13509/6), before setting a target of 4% by 2030.
“The problem is also to better mobilise European funds and private investment through guarantee mechanisms, for example”, Ekaterina Zaharieva explained.
Pan-European status for start-ups. Ms Zaharieva is the first commissioner with specific expertise in start-ups. However, it will be her counterpart at Justice, Michael McGrath, who will take the lead in promoting the adoption of a pan-European legal status, known as the “28th regime”, for European start-ups (see EUROPE 13518/2).
The adoption of such a regime will undoubtedly require “enhanced cooperation” between willing Member States to “avoid waiting until 2030”, she acknowledged, in response to the concerns of João Cotrim de Figueiredo (Renew Europe, Portuguese).
Reform of the European Research Council. Much awaited on the question of the reform of the European Research Council (ERC), proposed by Mario Draghi in his report on the competitiveness of the European Union, Ms Zaharieva explained that she was waiting for the results of assessments currently underway before giving her opinion. In all cases, “the ERC’s autonomy will have to be preserved and strengthened”, she said, in order to give experts greater flexibility in choosing projects and to “put an end to them when they don’t work”.
Without explicitly committing to maintaining a European Innovation Council (EIC), she said that this instrument had “room for improvement”. “Yes, the processes take too long. There is not enough flexibility in the decision-making process and there is not enough funding”, she acknowledged. In particular, she intends to strengthen cooperation with the EIB and investor networks to enhance expertise.
Neither the MEPs’ questions nor the candidate mentioned the possibility of purely and simply combining the strategic funds for research and innovation into a single European Competitiveness Fund when the 2028-2034 budget is adopted.
Technological priorities. Ms Zaharieva also said that having fifteen priorities for the Horizon Europe framework programme “is no longer having priorities”. She intends to focus efforts on the following three areas: - a 2025 life sciences strategy; - the AI strategy currently being developed, including the creation of an “AI Council”; - a future strategy on advanced materials.
At the same time, she confirmed to Ville Niinistö (Greens/EFA, Finnish) that 35% of funds must be devoted to research into climate change. While “only 8.7% of funds are currently allocated to biodiversity, I hope to reach 10% by the end of the programme”, she vowed. And she added: “We don’t have to choose between competitiveness and environmental protection. The two go hand in hand”.
Nuclear. Pressed by Elena Donazzan (ECR, Italian) on the “controversial” subject of nuclear power’s contribution to climate neutrality, the Commissioner-designate said that the European Research and Euratom programmes would continue to work on small nuclear reactors. These programmes are necessary both to develop facilities and to maintain European nuclear expertise.
“An initiative will be launched in early 2025 on this subject”, she said.
Defence. Ms Zaharieva assured Per Clausen (The Left, Danish) that the research work involving Israeli researchers does not concern defence issues. In addition, some Member States are in favour of dual-use technologies being eligible for the Framework Programme. “We will be discussing this with MEPs and stakeholders, but Horizon Europe will remain dedicated to civilian research, independently of the defence fund”, she stressed.
Finally, the Commissioner-designate responded diplomatically to the nationalist Hungarian and Czech MEPs who questioned her about the ‘cordon sanitaire’ deployed around their parties and universities, explaining in particular that “Hungarian researchers can take part in programmes, but not receive funding”.
The Bulgarian candidate concluded her hearing by expressing her emotion at being where she is, the 14-year-old Bulgarian teenager who was discovering fundamental freedoms at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. (Original version in French by Nathalie Steiwer)