Girona, 01/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner Philippe Busquin took advantage of the informal meeting of Research and Industry Ministers, which began on Friday in Girona (Spain) under the chairmanship of Spanish Minister for Science and Technology Anna Maria Birulés, to draw up a list of measures that will allow Europe to catch up with the United States and Japan. The meeting, which was also attended by Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, responsible for Industry, continued on Saturday with two separate sessions. The meetings brought together the industry ministers, on one side, who were to discuss enterprise from the angle of risk-taking but also industrial cooperation in the Mediterranean basin, and, on the other, Research Ministers on the theme of opening up national research programmes.
Public support to private investment in research: The European research effort is stagnating at 1.9% of its GDP while that of its rivals is continually on the increase: 2.6% for the United States and nearly 3% for Japan, recalled Mr Busquin. He stressed that the gap is getting bigger and that it is today EUR 76 billion annually with the United States. 87% of this gap is due to the difference in intensity of private research effort: 1.1% of GDP on Europe as opposed to 1.8% in the United States. The Commissioner also insisted on the need to mobilise the instruments that Europe has to support the private research effort more effectively and to a greater extent. He cited State aid to research which only represents 0.05% of the Union's GDP, and stressed that the revision under way in the Community framework for such aid (Ed.: rules aimed at preventing competition distortion) is an "opportunity to optimise the conditions of our intervention in this form". Mr Busquin also recommended mobilising certain instruments in a more systematic way: - tax credits for research activities (already existing in the United Kingdom and France); Income tax breaks for researchers or for recruiting young research scientists or researchers from third countries (the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy and Belgium); loan guarantees for SMEs (the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Finland and Belgium). Mr Busquin pointed out that in its Communication ahead of the European Council in Barcelona, the Commission proposed for the EU to aim to invest 3% of its GDP in research by 2010.
Researcher mobility. Mr Busquin again stressed the need to remove the remaining obstacles to researcher mobility - that tend to be of a social, family, linguistic, cultural or, usually, of an administrative or regulatory nature. The Commissioner maintained that national authorities could and should take action, particularly in terms of recruitment, visas, taxation, social security and pension rights.
Intellectual property. Mr Busquin highlighted the necessity of adopting the Community patent as soon as possible, calling for intellectual property rights schemes to be updated to cover the needs of the information society and the economy.
Opening up of national programmes. Commenting that the draft 6th Framework Programme for Research and Development earmarked for the very first time some EUR 280 million for supporting the co-ordination of national research activities, Mr Busquin hoped that a 5% target would be set for the proportion of national research programmes in the EU that are opened up to other Member States.