Girona, 04/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - During an informal seminar on Friday and Saturday in Girona (Spain), EU Industry and Research Ministers set a goal of committing 3% of the European Union's gross domestic product on research and development by 2010. Commissioner Philippe Busquin (see EUROPE 2 February page 8) had previously spoken about this EU objective. Significant efforts will have to be made (the current sum obtained from private and public investors accounts for only 1.9% of GDP) if Europe is to catch up with the USA and Japan. During a press conference, the Spanish Science and Technology Minister, Ana Birules, explained that fiscal policies to help the private sector needed to by promoted in order to encourage private sector investment. Just before the seminar, Commissioner Busquin explained that the gap between Europe and its US and Japanese competitors was 87% due to the lack of European private sector investment in research. Ms Birules stressed the importance of creating a single stock market to promote investment in research and new technology and called for the swift adoption of the Community patent.
As well as setting aside 3% of GDP for research, and other measures for encouraging private investment, the conclusions of the Spanish Presidency emphasise the necessity of re-framing State Aid for research with a view to guaranteeing greater efficiency. This Ministerial informal seminar also gave its support to the Commission developed strategy of: promoting the mobility of researchers; helping make the European risk capital market more attractive in order to create enterprise innovation and support small and medium-sized businesses. Ministers also supported the European strategy of the European Commission in the biotechnology sector. During the meeting, Research Ministers spent a great deal of their time examining the progressive mutual opening up of national RTD programmes but rejected Commissioner's Busquin's suggestion to set an overall objective They were in favour of a progressive opening up, which they thought should be based on a bottom-up approach in coordination methods, the variable geometry scheme, and the respect of the voluntarity and recipprocity principles. Ministers agreed on the importance of increasing mutual knowledge through information exchanges, the setting up of networks for national policy makers and managers of RTD programmes and developing a tool for gathering information on RTD national programmes. CORDIS was mentioned in this connection, with Ministers also referring to other multilateral roles played by Eureka, Eurores and CREST. Industry Ministers discussed the initiatives aimed at strengthening industrial competivity in Europe and recognised the need for giving a new boost to industrial co-operation activities within the Euro-Mediterranean partnership. They agreed that there was a need to advance in the administrative and legal framework, particularly in the field of technical standards and co-operation between businesses and EU research centres in the Mediterranean countries. The forthcoming Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Industry Ministers in Malaga on 10 April 2002 should constitute an essential step towards the achievement of the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area by 2010