The European Parliament debated the ‘Choose Europe for Science’ initiative aimed at making Europe a magnet for researchers, at its plenary session on Thursday 22 May (see EUROPE 13633/5). It welcomed this decision, but called for more funding for researchers.
For Christian Ehler (EPP, German), this initiative is “an important signal for Europe and the world”: “We want to be attractive for the world, but we are also the safe haven for researchers, women researchers in Afghanistan, researchers under pressure in other parts of the world”. He added that it requires an autonomous and solid research programme. “So, research budgets are in constraints and that is in complete opposition to what our formulated ambition had been – that at least 3% of the GDP of Europe should be allocated to research and innovation”, he deplored. “Ambitions should follow also with the political courage to prioritise research and innovation in Europe”, he added.
“The Commission’s initiative is not enough: we need to encourage the Member States to build a legislative framework capable of strengthening and supporting the capacity of researchers, those who have emigrated and whom we want to bring back, those whom we want to attract and, above all, those who have stayed but who live and work in precarious conditions”, said Giorgio Gori (S&D, Italian).
Ilaria Salis (The Left, Italian) and Anna Strolenberg (Greens/EFA, Dutch) expressed concern about the precarious conditions in which researchers currently work in Europe. They also denounced the double standards applied to the treatment of less-skilled migrants. “Europe should always be a refuge, a place of freedom, cooperation and hope. It would be nice [...] if this were also the case for migrants and asylum seekers who work in other occupations and come from other parts of the world, but this is not the case”, lamented Ms Salis.
On the conservative and far-right side, MEPs from the ECR, ESN and PfE groups opposed the defence of an ideology that they felt was too progressive. “We must also make it clear that spending money on left-wing ideological research is quite simply a waste of money”, said Piotr Müller (ECR, Polish). (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)