Brussels, 04/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - The opening on Monday in Copenhagen of the IST 2002 conference provided an opportunity for Erkki Liikanen to reaffirm that, despite the crisis in the information and communication technologies (ITC) sector, the latter remains one of the keys that will allow the EU to fill its productivity gap compared to the United States. With this in mind, the European Commissioner responsible for enterprise and information society policy stressed how necessary it is to invest in research and development (R&D). "We must first of all increase the level of support for R&D, also in the private sector (…). There must be investment so that we can master the next generation of technologies and applications", he declared.
After urging for a real internal market for research, he noted that "twenty-five streams do not make a great river unless they converge", his counterpart for research, Philippe Busquin, welcomed the fact that the EU Heads of State and Government had approved his proposal, in Barcelona, to gradually increase the research effort in Europe to 3% of GDP by 2010. Nonetheless, he said, achievement of the Lisbon Strategy will "call for greater effectiveness in implementation". He mainly went on to call for the adoption of initiatives proposed by the Commission and approved by the European Council, which have a direct impact on the vitality of European research. "I am thinking of measures such as the Community patent, which must be simple, inexpensive and effective", Mr Busquin said.