Brussels, 25/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - Before the industry ministers and Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes examined the question of State aid for innovation over lunch on Monday, the Competitiveness Council had given its “broad support” for the ten-point strategy for reactivating innovation as proposed by Industry Commissioner Günter Verheugen in the communication of 13 September (EUROPE 9264). “The main thing is now to have the political resolve to act”, Mr Verheugen said, after a long exchange of views between ministers on the Commission's document. The Member States will have an opportunity to show proof of “political resolve” this autumn to stimulate innovation and strengthen European competitiveness, in particular at the informal summit in Lahti on 20 October. “We trust that the European Council's support for reactivating innovation will make it possible to speed up the initiatives we take”, the Finnish minister for industry, Mauri Pekkarinen, said after having announced that the Competitiveness Council will adopt conclusions in December for “drawing up guidelines for an effective innovation policy of European scale”. “What is important is that the Heads of Government in Lahti should give a clear signal”, Mr Verheugen hammered home during the press conference, stressing the need for “urgent action”.
Generally speaking, the ministers approved the priorities identified in the Commission's communication. The need to set in place educational systems to promote innovation and entrepreneurship was particularly well received by all ministers, who also agreed on the need to strengthen cooperation between research and industry to promote the transfer of knowledge between universities, other public research organisations and private sector industry. In this context, most speakers placed emphasis on the need for stronger cross-border cooperation to promote the development of “clusters”, poles of competitiveness and technological platforms. On the other hand, many Member States expressed considerable reticence about having a single physical site for the European Institute of Technology. Germany is against a structure that could “entail further burdens and administrative cost that Europe could do without”. Stressing their preference for a more flexible approach based on the networking of research centres, Greece, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Sweden also called for caution. In response to press questions, Mr Verheugen assured that the “Institute will not be a copy of the American institute in Massachusetts, but will be a network of centres of excellence targeting the major technological projects”. The Commission will submit its proposal in October so that the Institute may be operational in 2009.
All ministers also agreed to place the strengthening of intellectual property rights (IPR) at the heart of Community innovation strategy, especially to the benefit of SMEs. Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands stressed their commitment in favour of a single European patent, and France was keen on a Community patent that guaranteed multilingualism. Hoping that progress will be made in the autumn on this dossier currently blocked by the linguistic dispute, Mr Pekkarinen said he was waiting for the Commission's proposals to confirm the position held by the Finnish Presidency. “I recently said that a Community patent in a single language would be a solution”, he said, urging for the greatest caution (“it is dangerous to say that at this stage”).
The idea of finalising a strategy for facilitating the emergence of “carrier markets” also received the Council's full support. Most Member States (United Kingdom and new Member States especially) stressed the importance of placing emphasis on the services sector. France is in favour of promoting digital services and Denmark suggested giving preference to innovative medicine (mainly against obesity) and energy-efficient real-estate construction. The incentive for innovation through public procurement, especially to the advantage of SMEs, also received the backing of all Member States.
Finally, the debate remained open on the question of encouraging innovation with direct aid or tax incentives. The framework proposed by the Commission for State aid is insufficient, Germany said, calling for focus to be on tax incentives. Lithuania was also clearly in favour of tax incentive measures. Poland stressed the need to “allow national choices” depending on the level of development of each Member State. Like Ireland (who recalled that, outside Union borders, very attractive subsidy offers may cover a large part of a company's R&D spending), Luxembourg said one should examine the practice of State aid in other countries competing with the Union.