Von der Leyen asks 27 for more investment in research

This Wednesday, the President of the European Commission called on European Union member states to increase their ambitions for investment in research, given that the agreed target of 3% of GDP in this area by 2030 is proving insufficient. .

Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg during a debate at the EU Heads of State and Government Summit scheduled for 23 and 24 March, Ursula von der Leyen devoted her entire speech to the measures proposed by Brussels to improve the competitiveness of the community bloc, following a trip to the United States last week to discuss with President Joe Biden Washington’s anti-inflation bill, which sparked the so-called “subsidy race”.

“We Europeans have set ourselves the goal of spending 3% of our GDP on research and development (R&D). We are slowly but surely approaching this goal. But this is not enough. Others are faster and better,” the public figure warned the president.

Von der Leyen stressed that although the amount allocated to R&D is slowly growing, the share of total R&D spending has fallen from 41% to 31% over the past 20 years.

“Together with the Swedish Presidency of the Council, I would therefore like to propose to Heads of State and Government to increase the common European target for research spending. This is not only necessary for European researchers, academics and businesses. a clear sign of how serious we are about strengthening our competitiveness,” defended von der Leyen, who will have the opportunity to discuss the issue with the leaders of 27 countries in the European Council at the end of next week.

The German leader recalled that she met with President Biden in Washington on Friday for a “very good discussion” of the US plan to fight inflation, congratulating herself for being able to find “solutions” to the European aspects of the bill.

Commenting that “there is an impressive symmetry between the Inflation Reduction Act [dos EUA] and the European Environment Pact”, his Commission’s “flag”, as “both are both a climate strategy and an investment and growth strategy”, suggesting a strong commitment to cleantech, von der Leyen said Europe still has to do your job to don’t stay away.

“We Europeans need to improve our own cleantech industry. We need to speed up and simplify procedures. And we need to provide better access to public and private funding,” he defended, thus justifying two major legislative proposals that the Commission will adopt. and to introduce Thursday – the Zero Emissions Industry Act and the Critical Raw Materials Act, which he called “the centerpieces of the Green Deal’s industrial plan.”

“War on the cusp, volatile energy prices and massive investment [de outras potências] Europe needs to improve in cleantech. This is our proposal,” he concluded.