Committee on Industry, Research and Energy Ordinary meeting
Legend
Transcript markers
- text Sentence being played
- text Search result
- text Intervention cited by the link you opened
Click a sentence to play the video from that moment. Select text to quote it with the speaker, timestamp and link.
More options
Offset
Transcript offset
Export
Live capture
Versions of this video
Transcripts may differ slightly from one version to another.
ITRE European Parliament
Follow its sittingsChristophe Lesniak
Thank you very much. Honorable members, first of all, thank you very much for your interest in the work of ACER this morning. I also want to thank both boards of the agency, the Administrative Board with Bogdan here today, but also the Board of Regulators for their trust, because that is essentially what got me here today. I will not bore you with many explanations about who I am, because at least some of you know me. We have worked together on a number of legislative files over the years.
I have always very much enjoyed the cooperation with ITRE, with the ITRE members and with the European Parliament more broadly. And this is very much what I'm hoping to continue in this new function.
You will hear me today speaking purely in a personal capacity. I'm in this sort of odd limbo where you cannot ask me things about what the Commission is doing, and you should probably also not ask me things about what ACER's position is on issues. You're getting just my personal views as a candidate, and I just want to be clear about that. I've been working on the internal energy market for many years, and it's a bit of a passion of mine and an important part of my professional career. And that's also the reason why I'm excited and interested in the work of ACER.
I will say a few words about how I see the future of the agency and its tasks in the next couple of years. So first of all, I think affordability of energy is the crucial point. And I know that this is the crucial point for many of you. It's what your constituents ask you about when you talk to them. Energy bills are a crucial issue.
And I want to dedicate the work of the agency very much to helping you in making energy affordable. It's a crucial issue for citizens. It's a crucial issue for companies. It's a crucial issue for European competitiveness. Now at the same time, don't expect miracles, right?
So if you think that we have a switch which all of a sudden makes something that's very expensive very cheap, we don't. We cannot miraculously lower the cost of energy commodities. We cannot miraculously make the very challenging geopolitical environment in which we operate go away. But there's one thing we can do. We have an internal market and the internal market already today is a significant driver of affordability.
And sometimes that's not so visible because we have a tendency to stare at the wholesale price and we look at the variations of the wholesale price. But there is a significant other cost element in all of this, which is the cost of running the energy system. And there the internal market is making a very important contribution.
It makes security of supply, which we urgently need, cheaper. It helps to moderate price spikes because countries help each other. There, if there was any need for that illustration, we've seen it again during this summer in Southeast Europe with the nuclear outages in the region where some countries were heavily dependent on cross-border flows. We've seen it in 2022 during the energy crisis where the internal market has basically compensated for the fact that countries got cut off from their normal and traditional gas suppliers. So the internal energy market makes an important contribution.
This is what we work on in the agency and we want to make sure that it makes an even better contribution in the years to come. So first, there's three points there that I think are relevant.
There's two where I think we can help you, and there's definitely one where we're going to turn to all of you for help. The first one where we can help you is we play an important role in turning what you decide in terms of energy policy into practical reality. So energy market rules have to be applied in practice, and the agency plays an important role in that. It develops implementing rules, it ensures that rules are complied with, and this is a core function of the agency and one which I will dedicate a significant amount of our time and energy to also in the years to come. I want to stress this is very much dependent on the cooperation with the national regulatory authorities.
Our agency is only as strong as its relationship with national regulators, and we will put a strong emphasis on developing these relationships and on bringing national regulators fully into the work of this agency.
This is the agency of national regulators, and we want that to be clearly reflected in everything we do. So implementation is one core function, but there is another way in which the agency can help all of you. The agency has an enormous amount of information about energy markets, about individual transactions. It has data, it has expert knowledge, and in your deliberations about the future of energy policy, I want to give you the possibility to make use of that expertise and to make more efficient use of that expertise than what has sometimes happened in the past. I want to make the wealth of technical expertise in this agency available to you in your legislative processes.
I want ACER to be there if you need information.
We know that this is sometimes very technical stuff when we're talking energy market legislation and that expert knowledge helps to improve your work. We will bring you an independent view to the table on these things. We will organize ourselves in a way which makes that possible in a non-bureaucratic way whenever you seek that type of support. I think the added value of that is that you get a direct take from the European regulatory community on some of the issues that you're looking at on a day-to-day basis. And sometimes that's valuable also as an independent take coming from a good range of experts at national level.
So, that's the second point. Now I come to the point where we will turn to you. All of this is only possible because the agency has highly expert, super-specialized staff and teams working on this.
They are top quality and they are a very important reason why I've applied for this job, because it's an enormous honor to be working for them and with them. But they need your support. They need your support when you look at new legislative processes where sometimes ACER is called upon to step up to meet additional tasks. When you see that, always think about who's going to do that and think about the resource angle. When you start discussing the MFF, which is a very important discussion, think about them and think about the fact that, yes, a top-notch agency of the kind that is useful to you doesn't come for free.
We are an agency that operates in a special environment. Sometimes rules and principles devised for Brussels don't translate themselves super well into the local context. So we will ask for your understanding and your support to make all this a reality.
I know many of you have given this in the past. We count on it and I very, very much want to work with all of you. I want this not to be the end of an application process, but I want it to be the start of an ongoing cooperation with all of you, both individually and collectively. We will be ready. Thank you.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you, Mr. Lesenič, and I'm sure all the colleagues here do appreciate the call for cooperation, especially when it comes into the translation of some of the heavy decisions we need to take to our citizens and industries. And now, without further ado, let's move to the first round of the interventions today.
So, uh, as, as usual, we're going to have 90 seconds for, uh, the intervention of the members, with immediate 90 seconds of answers for the, the director-designate, Mr. Liesenich, and a possible follow-up of 30 seconds for each one of you. So we're starting with, uh, EPP and Madame Wechsler.
Andrea Wechsler
Ganz herzlichen Dank. Sehr geehrter Herr Liesenich, zunächst herzlichen Glückwunsch zu Ihrer Designierung. Die Leitung von ACER ist eine Schlüsselposition für den europäischen Energiemarkt, und Sie haben es ausgeführt, für die Energiepreise unserer Bürgerinnen und Bürger. Die Agentur wird in den kommenden Jahren bei Marktintegration, Netzausbau und Versorgungssicherheit weiter an Bedeutung gewinnen, und ich wünsche Ihnen viel Erfolg bei dieser Aufgabe. Nun aber meine Fragen.
Erstens zum Thema Benchmarking. Effizienzvergleiche, wie im Kommissionsvorschlag vom 17. Juli zu den Netzentgelten vorgesehen, können sinnvoll sein, aber europäische Netzbetreiber arbeiten unter sehr, sehr unterschiedlichen Bedingungen. Wie stellen Sie sicher, dass daraus keine quasi automatische europäische Erlösregulierung entsteht und notwendige Investitionen oder nationale Besonderheiten nicht bestraft werden? Zweitens zur Technologieoffenheit.
Werden Sie sicherstellen, dass ACER bei Netzen, Flexibilität und Versorgungssicherheit Technologie nach objektiven Kriterien wie Systemkosten, Sicherheit und Emissionsminderung bewertet und keine bestimmten technologischen Pfade politisch bevorzugt werden? Und drittens, wegen der zunehmenden Schlüsselposition von ACER und zusätzlichen Kompetenzen haben Sie selbst schon über die Rolle der nationalen Regulierungsbehörden gesprochen und ich würde da gerne nachfassen, wie genau stellen Sie sich die Rollenverteilung zwischen ACER und nationalen Regulierungsbehörden vor und in diesem Kontext auch, welche zusätzlichen Formen der Transparenz und Kontrolle gegenüber dem Europäischen Parlament würden Sie unterstützen?
Christophe Lesniak
Vielen herzlichen Dank. Ich werde direkt auf Deutsch antworten. Also zunächst zum Benchmarking. Wie ich anfangs gesagt habe, ich werde nicht zu Kommissions-Legislativvorschlägen Stellung nehmen. Ich werde Ihnen nur sagen, wie ich mir die Rolle von ACER in diesem Zusammenhang vorstelle.
Also zunächst mal, unsere Zielsetzung wird keineswegs sein, den nationalen Regulierungsbehörden vorzuschreiben, wie sie ihre Netzbetreiber zu regulieren haben. Was wir schaffen wollen, ist, wir wollen Anlass geben zu einem Austausch zwischen den nationalen Regulierungsbehörden und ihren Netzbetreibern. Und dieser Austausch muss auch möglich sein vor dem Hintergrund der Kosteneffizienz. Die nationalen Regulierungsbehörden müssen auch die Möglichkeit haben, ihrem Netzbetreiber zu sagen: Schau, vielleicht ist es so, dass jemand anders was kosteneffizienter macht.
Warum ist das hier bei uns anders? Und natürlich oft wird der Netzbetreiber darauf antworten: Ähm mein Netz ist anders, unsere Bedingungen sind anders ähm äh und aber trotzdem dieses dieses Gespräch sollte nach unserer Einschätzung stattfinden. Zweitens zur Technologieoffenheit. Selbstverständlich ACER hat keine Rolle in der Auswahl von Technologien und ich würde das auch ehrlich gesagt nicht für eine sehr sinnvolle Tätigkeit für ACER halten, wenn sie jetzt ähm die die Prärogative der nationalen Energiepolitik an sich reißen würde, um zu entscheiden, welche Technologie ähm äh der Investition bedarf. Was ACER leisten kann, ist Bedarf aufzuzeigen und Bedarf zu objektivieren, also darzustellen, wo der größte Bedarf besteht, äh wo das Netz investitionsbedürftig ist.
Und dafür ist es allerdings so, dass die Agentur wirklich in einer sehr guten Position ist, weil sie als eine der wenigen Stellen den Überblick über das gesamte europäische Netz dabei mitberücksichtigen kann. Dann bei der Rollenverteilung zu nationalen Regulierungsbehörden. Nur um das ganz klar zu sagen, ich bin nicht der Meinung, dass die Entstehung des europäischen Binnenmarkts und die Vertiefung des europäischen Binnenmarktes einhergehen muss mit einem Kompetenzverlust der nationalen Regulierungsbehörden. Wir brauchen starke nationale Regulierungsbehörden und unabhängige nationale Regulierungsbehörden im europäischen Binnenmarkt und wir wollen diese nationalen Regulierungsbehörden auch stark in ACER vertreten wissen. Allerdings gleichzeitig ist es so, im Binnenmarkt gibt ist die Abhängigkeit der einzelnen Mitgliedstaaten von Entwicklungen, die teilweise mehrere hundert Kilometer entfernt passieren, größer.
Darin sehe ich eigentlich die Hauptaufgabe.
Und das führt bisweilen auch dazu, dass Bedarf für einen unabhängigen Entscheidungsträger besteht. Und wo das der Fall ist, werden wir dem selbstverständlich gerne nachkommen.
Ja, eine kurze Frage noch zum Thema Stromgebotszonen.
ACER hat in der Vergangenheit auf mögliche Wohlfahrtsgewinne durch alternative Gebotszonenkonfigurationen hingewiesen. Meine Frage: Welche Evidenz müsste aus Ihrer Sicht vorliegen, auch insbesondere angesichts regionaler Auswirkungen, bevor ACER eine so weitreichende Veränderung unterstützt? Dankeschön.
Christophe Lesniak
Also zunächst mal, ähm, die Gebotszonenkonfigu- ACER hat keine Kompetenz, morgen über die Gebotszonenkonfiguration in Europa zu entscheiden. Und es würde mich auch sehr wundern, wenn ACER diese Kompetenz bekäme. Unsere Aufgabe besteht darin, sicherzustellen, ähm, dass die entsprechenden Prozesse auf empirisch sauberer Grundlage passieren. Also das ist ein Prozess, der im Wesentlichen von den, von den Versorgungsnetzbetreibern durchgeführt wird, dieser Bidding Zone Review. Und unsere Aufgabe ist sicherzustellen, dass das methodisch korrekt passiert und dass die richtigen Daten auf dem Tisch liegen.
Ich will allerdings zwei persönliche Worte anführen. Zum einen ist es, glaube ich, wichtig, die Tatsache nicht aus den Augen zu verlieren, dass es ein europäisches Problem ist, weil das auch kein auf bestimmte Mitgliedstaaten spezielles Problem, sondern dass das ein gesamteuropäisches Problem, das Auswirkungen in unterschiedlichen Teilen des Binnenmarkts hat. Und der andere Punkt, den ich gerne dazu sagen würde, ist, dass unabhängig von der Gebotszonenkonfiguration wir im Binnenmarkt Bedarf haben, die lokale Komponente insgesamt, damit meine ich jetzt nicht nur bei der Preisfindung, sondern auch in anderen Aspekten, Fördersysteme, Tarife, die lokale Komponente stärker berücksichtigen zu müssen.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. And now we're moving to S&D with Mr. González Casares for a minute and a half.
Nicolás González Casares
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Christophe, for being here today. It's a pleasure to have you here. We know you very well from the past, so it's good to have some really known faces. I will switch to Spanish. Ya te digo, aquí vas a encontrar, vas a encontrar colaboración de buena fe.
Eso es lo que queremos, buena fe de la colaboración entre ACER e ITRE. Y hoy me gustaría hacerte dos preguntas concretas estrechamente relacionadas con la labor de ACER.
La primera, hay una gran irrupción de los centros de datos en el sistema energético con una gran demanda que está irrumpiendo a una gran velocidad. Y ACER acaba de advertir en una opinión sobre los riesgos para la adecuación del sistema eléctrico portugués que puede provocar distorsiones en esa adecuación. La demanda crece más rápido que la generación y se deben buscar soluciones. ¿Cómo ves aquí la incorporación de recursos no fósiles como las baterías y mecanismos de flexibilidad? ¿Crees que necesitamos criterios concretos de sostenibilidad y cómo va a monitorizar ACER este rápido crecimiento de un agente nuevo, totalmente nuevo, que está irrumpiendo a una gran velocidad y provocando una gran demanda?
Y luego otra cuestión que afecta directamente a los ciudadanos. En una reciente publicación de ACER en julio establece que las facturas energéticas domésticas siguen muy por encima de los niveles anteriores a la crisis de 2022, en el caso del gas casi un 70% más caras. Los contratos de precio dinámico son los que se plantean como solución, señalando que un 52% de los contratos son a precio fijo.
¿Cómo podemos garantizar o de qué manera entiende ACER que se puede garantizar que un sistema donde predominan los precios dinámicos no va a ser más volátil para la ciudadanía que aquel basado en precios fijos? Muchas gracias.
Christophe Lesniak
Thank you very much. Indeed, we have cooperated well on the, on some important projects and very much looking forward to, to continue doing that. So, first on the question of the additional demand and also batteries entering the system. I think the energy price situation which we're seeing at the moment is a, one of high prices and you have referred to that. But if we look closer, it's also one of fairly extreme volatility in terms of prices.
Volatility throughout the day, driven by, by a number of factors, but this volatility also has an important impact on prices. And indeed, batteries, storage and flexibility are important means to help manage that volatility. So they don't just bring additional demand, they can also bring additional flexibility. I would however say that in order to achieve that, it's important that we get a number of things right.
A, we have to get right where this demand ends up in the system. I already referred to locational aspects and that's very important for what we do with batteries. We need to put them where we need them and not just where it's convenient for them to go. Two, behavior in terms of when do they charge, when do they discharge. They can make an enormous contribution, but all of this needs to be right and we need to have the right incentives for them to help the energy system and to help us reduce the energy system costs.
Generally speaking, in terms of the increase of demand, I think there are a few things which are relevant. At the moment, I think many member states are seeing rollout of data centers as a not insignificant issue in terms of additional demand.
And that poses a number of regulatory challenges. How do we decide, you know, when they get on the grid, where do they go, how do they charge and discharge? Is there a potential for flexibility? So lots of regulatory questions around that, which I'm very much looking forward to working on together with the national regulators in the context of ACER. Household bills and flexible contracts.
So first, a word of caution. ACER's competences are not really, you know, concentrated in the retail market segment. And I think there's a good reason for that, which is that, of course, the value added of a European agency is particularly strong when you look at cross-border exchange and cross-border flows, which implicates more than one Member State. However, what the agency is doing on the retail side is really to look closely at what works, where there are good practices that can be rolled out on a broader level, to flag these, to discuss them in the regulatory community. We do this very much also together with our colleagues from CEER, who also are an important source of knowledge and experience in that respect.
So, not our core competence, but something that we are very interested in and where we hope to be able to to illustrate and spread good practices.
Nicolás González Casares
Gracias, Christophe. Volviendo a lo de los centros de datos, me gustaría saber en el fondo si ACER no cree que en este momento se merece una observación detallada de lo que está ocurriendo en el mercado y las decisiones de los diferentes reguladores, porque estamos viendo que hay decisiones muy diferentes según qué país, qué Estado miembro, y después cómo afecta esto a la red. Es decir, esos centros de datos necesitan redes y eso tiene unos costes. Cómo se reparten esos costes entre la ciudadanía o los propios desarrolladores es algo muy importante. ¿Piensa observar ACER estos aspectos?
Christophe Lesniak
So first, I'm going back to my introduction. I cannot tell you today how ACER views this situation. I will find out when I arrive. So today, for now, you're going to have to make do with my own views.
I think so data center rollout is something that can have a very fundamental impact on the functioning of the energy system. We've already seen that in a number of member states. And we're also seeing the regulatory community deal with that novelty. And you are right, there are some member states and some regulatory authorities who have been more exposed to this issue already for some time and who have already developed a number of good practices on how to deal with it. And dealing with it means how do we deal with it in terms of connection queues?
You know, how do we decide do we connect a data center, do we connect another type of user? How do we deal with these difficult decisions? What do we ask from the data center in terms of flexibility? Is there a contribution which can be made by the data in terms of flexibility so that there is a benefit for the system in the connection? Sometimes we hear we need 24/7 electricity.
Sometimes we see that there are, there is backup generation which is part of these installations. Can it be used for the system? Can it be incentivized? Can it be remunerated? All these questions are being dealt with by regulators.
I don't think it is an issue where, you know, from a European level we should just step in and say, well, this is the right approach to this, because it is an approach which very much depends on the specificity of the national and sometimes even the local grid. So we should leave regulators the flexibility to work this out. But not dissimilar to what I said about retail, we need to look at these practices and we need to make sure that we can learn from each other, in particular from the ones who've been confronted with the issue already for some time.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. And now we are moving to Renew with Madam Stürk, you got the floor. Is there a mistake on the speaker's list?
Because we don't have any speakers from ECR Patriots confirmed on the initial speaker's list which had to be provided to us by the political groups. We can continue with the catch-the-eyes, I see you. So let's let's move to Renew and Madam Stürk following the speaker's list that has been confirmed by the political groups.
Anna Stürgkh
Thank you very much. All right. First of all, congratulations on your designation. I want to ask more about your view on ACER and your leadership and how you want to develop the agency further. So first of all, going back to something you said actually in your introduction, which was you want to be able you want us to be able to make more use of the expertise that ACER has.
Now we have the contact group and we really appreciate that. I think those are very valuable meetings. But how exactly do you envision making us be able to use that expertise more? How how are you going to make sure that that happens? What exactly are your visions there?
What can we expect from ACER over the next few years when it comes to that? And the other question is when we look at ACER, of course, we already see an expanding portfolio of different tasks. So how are you envisioning managing that without blowing up the agency as an apparatus and making sure that you can do this most efficiently?
What is your plan there? Thank you.
Christophe Lesniak
Thank you very much. So for the two questions. First, how do we do this practically in terms of our cooperation? So I think, a, geography is sometimes a bit of a challenge because of course, you know, in order for the agency to respond to all of you on a day-to-day basis, I think it is important that we have colleagues, small number of colleagues available here for you at any moment in time that can respond to your questions, engage in these discussions and come to you whenever you need information. That's one important point.
And I think it's a point which comes on top of the sort of more institutional type of exchange. We have the contact group. We have, you know, we have MEPs, we will have MEPs coming to Ljubljana in two weeks' time, very much looking forward to that.
But I think in addition to the purely institutional side, what I am keen to develop is a way for each of you to just be able to pick up the phone to us and to ask questions. And we will organize ourselves in such a way that this becomes possible. So that's the, I mean, don't don't nail me on the organizational specificities because I'm not there yet, but I'm really keen on on making this agency useful for all of you, and that also means day-to-day. Then just one word on competences. We will reap any synergies that we can, both within the house but also with other agencies.
You know, if there are things that we need to do together with other European agencies to save on resources, to make sure that we are as as nimble and fast as we can be, we will do that. Thank you.
Tsvetelina Penkova
You have a follow-up? Okay, thank you. We're moving to the Greens with Mr. Niinistö.
Ville Niinistö
Thank you, thank you Chair. Thank you Christophe for being here today and obviously you've already answered plenty of questions and our group would like to also support ACER being more active in participation of the dialogue here in Brussels, so that is very much welcome. And also at the ITRE committee we have been very supportive also of ACER's resources when it comes to cybersecurity upgrades. We already last week pushed for an additional 900,000 euros funding for these cybersecurity upgrades in 2027 and we'll try to make sure that the BUDG committee is also taking it on board. So, so we very much support ACER's role.
When it comes to the modernization of the grid and empowerment of consumers, I think this is vital also in the energy transition. And I have a more specific question. I know you answered already what the S&D was asking about the retail markets, but more specifically, if we think about the kind of like transition that we are having, we are moving from an electricity system that is, has been more centralized into a much more renewable generation, more electrification, more storage, more electric vehicles, more heat pumps, more, more electric flows back and forth, also prosumers, so, so the consumers are being included.
It creates huge opportunities for citizens and consumers to become active participants in the energy system, but it also requires the regulatory framework to catch up. And I think there are big difference in the member states on this. Consumers need access to their energy data, functioning smart metering systems, dynamic tariffs and markets that actually allow them to provide flexibility, so real-time price signals, for example. So my my question is, do you believe ACER should take more active role in this and identifying the barriers and and removing the regulatory barriers that prevent consumers from participating in the electricity market and benefiting from the flexibility they can provide to the whole system and its functioning.
Christophe Lesniak
Thank you very much for the question. I think it's it's a really, you know, relevant issue for the future of the market in the sense that citizens, you know, traditionally have been energy users and consumers.
But in a more flexible system, and we are heading for a more flexible system, there are opportunities for consumers to play a more active role. And that doesn't mean one has to kind of, you know, spend one's spare time reading, you know, energy price developments, which I'm pretty sure citizens have no appetite to do. But also based on automation, there are ways to participate more actively and to benefit from the flexibility, i.e. not to just suffer the consequences, but also reap the reward of a more flexible system. So I think that is a super important issue. It is one that helps the system and that helps the individual citizen.
It, as you rightly say, it requires the right regulatory setup. Does it require a setup that is harmonized by Ljubljana or by Brussels? I'm less sure. I think it's what it does require is exchange of good practices, as I responded before, so that we all learn from each other. But I'm not so sure we need kind of, you know, one way to do this across the EU, simply because national grids are different, local grids are different, and the way we do this at retail level needs to reflect these differences.
Ville Niinistö
Yes, thank you. We can continue that dialogue. I think it's important. More on the issue about geopolitics and cybersecurity. Obviously, we have threats coming to the European grid from more and different angles.
We have also the phase-out of Russian gas. So obviously, it's important that ACER is making sure that this transition is happening and we are implementing the legislation on exiting Russian gas and making sure that the system functions from gas flowing from other directions. How do you see ACER can make sure that this transition is working well and how do you see the main challenges to the cybersecurity stability also in context of the geopolitical threats that we have?
Christophe Lesniak
Thank you very much. So REPowerEU has been a very important change to the functioning of the internal market, I would say probably even more in gas than in electricity, but it has brought about kind of a fundamental redirection of gas flows. It is completely changed the way we use our existing infrastructure. It has certainly very fundamentally altered the role of LNG both in terms of infrastructure but also in terms of price formation. So this is, you know, a very significant shift for the European energy system.
It is one that regulators have actively helped to shape over the last couple of years and will continue to shape throughout the future. We need to see what it does to the infrastructure. Are there infrastructure bottlenecks that arise out of this shift? How do we make sure that the utilization of the infrastructure that we have is at the optimal level? So this will be very much part of the work of regulators also going forward and ACER will accompany that work.
The point you make about security and geopolitical aspects is of tantamount importance. We need to protect our critical infrastructure in a more challenging geopolitical environment. We have rules in that. ACER is involved in the setting of these rules and to some extent also involved in the application of these rules. We need to identify where the critical infrastructure sits and what we need to do to protect it.
I think it's something that is coming much more to the forefront and will play an absolutely crucial role in the years to come. And I think it's very important that the agency is involved in that process.
Affordability is very important, but affordability cannot come at the expense of protecting the critical function of our system.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. And the last from this round of speakers, and then we have six people for the catch-the-eye. We are running out of time, so please, colleagues, stick precisely to the time allocated because we have a vote afterwards and it's not okay to be late for that. So I'm moving to the left with Mr. Tamurano, four minutes and a half.
Dario Tamburrano
Grazie, direttore, per la sua presentazione iniziale che abbiamo molto apprezzato e credo, lo pensano anche i colleghi, come ho sentito, che potremmo tutti beneficiare di maggiori occasioni di scambio e interazione. Alla fine dell'anno, come lei sa, è prevista una proposta legislativa sulle energie rinnovabili. Sarebbe molto utile per noi e per i cittadini sapere come il quadro normativo europeo finora sui meccanismi di flessibilità e sulle comunità energetiche sia stato attuato a livello nazionale. Quali benefici i cittadini europei stiano effettivamente ottenendo da questi nuovi modelli e quali barriere persistano, cosa possiamo fare in caso per eliminarle.
Pensa che ci sia spazio per ACER per rafforzare proprio il lavoro di monitoraggio o quantomeno per svolgere un ruolo di raccordo tra il Parlamento europeo e i regolatori nazionali?
Christophe Lesniak
Allora, grazie, ringrazio molto per la domanda. È un tema molto importante e ne abbiamo già parlato un pochino con i colleghi riguardo alla partecipazione dei cittadini nel mercato. Io penso che in particolare in quanto riguarda le rinnovabili, questa partecipazione è in forte crescita già in vari Stati membri. E ci sono dei cittadini che utilizzano già questa forma di partecipazione nel mercato e la utilizzano per rendere la propria fornitura di energia più abbordabile. E penso che questo genere di partecipazione è una opportunità, uno per il cittadino stesso, ma due anche per il sistema di energia, se può portare a una maggiore flessibilità.
Noi la nostra rete viene costruita e dimensionata per rispondere alla domanda massima. Se noi tramite la flessibilità abbiamo modo di moderare la domanda massima, allora tutto il nostro sistema diventa più abbordabile. Questo è il valore aggiunto della flessibilità nel sistema e penso che sia molto importante coinvolgere il cittadino in questa forma di transizione.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Perfect. Thank you so much. We're continuing with the next round. We have six colleagues on the speaker's list, so I'm closing the list now and we start with EPP, Madame Lakos.
Thank you very much and thank you also to Mr. Lezenich that you have come today. Congratulations on your designation. Vostro italiano è veramente impressionante. Complimenti. Allora, you have said that affordability and of course we all know it and we agree on that of energy that is crucial for the citizens and for the industry, the core objective, but also availability.
Eszter Lakos
And this summer we have seen the heatwaves, what it has caused in terms of how to shut down nuclear power plants, or at least in France and Hungary, for instance, to reduce considerably the output due to raw historically low river levels and very high temperature. So whenever there is pressure in case of elevated demand for electricity, the prices of course increase. So I was wondering, you know, that within the mandate of ACER, what concrete actions you can take to strengthen the regional coordination, maximize available cross-border capacity and ensure that electricity can flow efficiently from lower price areas to affected Member States during future heatwaves? And does ACER consider the existing EU framework sufficient to manage increasingly frequent summer electricity supply shocks, or are additional EU-level mechanisms for regional adequacy, emergency cooperation and infrastructure planning required? Thank you.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. We're going to take all the questions, we don't have time for anything else at the moment. Mr. Geier from S&D.
Jens Geier
Danke, Frau Präsidentin. Herr Leszniczky, erstmal auch von meiner Seite herzlichen Glückwunsch zu der Nominierung. Sie haben eine Bitte an uns gerichtet.
Ich fühle mich da besonders angesprochen, weil ich auch mal Mitglied des Haushaltsausschusses war und da ständiger Berichterstatter für die Agenturen. Da habe ich mir angewöhnt, nicht nach dem Haushalt des Rates, nicht auf den Kommissionsansatz zurückzukehren, wie das das Parlament häufig macht, sondern auf den Ansatz, den die Agenturen für richtig gefunden haben, weil das ja meistens etwas näher an der Realität ist als das, was die Kommission Ihnen zu geben bereit ist. Von daher: Die Entwicklung des Energiebinnenmarktes war und ist eine der zentralen Anliegen von Präsidentin von der Leyen für diese Legislatur. Wo sehen Sie denn ACER am Ende dieser Legislatur und was brauchen Sie dafür, um dahin zu kommen, wo Sie ACER sehen würden?
Jana Nagyová
First of all, congratulations Mr. Zleznick and thank you very much for coming to speak to us even before taking fully the office. Just short question because given ACER expanded responsibilities under currently discussed grid package and the growing focus of the EU of the resilience on the critical energy infrastructure, question is, does ACER according to your current state of knowledge, does have sufficient capacity and expertise to ensure that security and resilience are adequately embedded in EU-wide grid planning and how we can, if not, how we as a Parliament can help? Thank you.
Diego Solier
Thank you very much, I'm going to speak in Spanish. Muchas gracias presidenta y enhorabuena por su nuevo nombramiento. Quería recalcar el tema de los centros de datos y la necesidad de más capacidad que vamos a necesitar en los próximos meses, años y como usted ha comentado ya antes, esa capacidad de la red. ¿Cree usted que los proyectos nuevos que se tengan que presentar para centros de datos deberían de venir acompañados con un proyecto de generación de energía independiente de la red, visto el estado de la red y que no sabemos si esa inversión en la red va a ser eficiente, va a llegar a tiempo para acomodar la necesidad de más energía? Muchas gracias.
Annalisa Corrado
Buongiorno, grazie per questo scambio molto utile e importante, soprattutto in un momento in cui la carne viva delle persone e delle imprese è morsa dal costo delle bollette.
Non ci possiamo permettere di perdere nemmeno un euro e quindi io volevo fare una domanda. Sono disponibili, saranno disponibili i simulatori europei per i dati del mercato di dispacciamento e di bilanciamento? Lo dico perché in Italia abbiamo un problema molto grosso sul regolamento REMIT. Lo scorso anno, abbondantemente da più di un anno, l'ARERA ha individuato la possibilità di comportamenti che sono stigmatizzati dal regolamento REMIT, ma poi le azioni sono molto lente e per ora c'è solo una procedura aperta, quando in altri paesi invece le sanzioni sono arrivate. Volevo capire gli strumenti che avete per valutare, aiutare il fatto che poi la direttiva e il regolamento venga davvero attuato in tempi consoni.
Grazie.
Niels Fuglsang
Thank you, President, and also congratulations from me to you. I would like to ask about our 70% target when it comes to interconnector capacity that Member States needs to make available for cross-border electricity trade. 70% of their interconnector capacity.
How do you think, well, we're behind here, we're not reaching our target as it is. How do you look at this and what do you think we can do and you can do to help us reach that target? Thank you.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. So, dear colleagues, I see that many of you are entering here for the votes now. We started with a few minutes delay, so let's be respectful and give to the ACER Director-designate, Mr. Liesenich, four minutes to reply. Please be quiet and respectful to your colleagues. Please, you have four minutes to reply to many questions and for the concluding remarks.
Christophe Lesniak
Thank you very much and welcome also to the new members to this discussion. So, I will start from the 70%. I would just say one thing about the 70% and this is, and please allow me to say something that's a little bit political. I have the impression as if the political discussion focuses very much on how much grids we can build. And that's a very important discussion.
We need to build lots of grids for the for the transition, to build the energy market, we need to build lots of grid. Let's make sure that we spend also some political attention to the other question, which is how do we use the infrastructure that we already have and how will we use the new infrastructure that we're going to build so that we get the maximum out of it in terms of cross-border exchange. I think it's a very very important topic because if we don't focus enough on that, we will be building all this infrastructure but we will not be using it for the purpose for which for which we need it in terms of cross-border flow. So very important topic. Data centers, should they come with energy production?
To be frank, we're seeing different models. I mean we've seen in the US sometimes requests for them to come with with energy production. I would personally be quite neutral about that in the sense what's the what's the most economical way of doing that, whether the generation sits with the data center, whether the generation sits separately, which is the best business model, I think that is something which we can probably let let the market decide. What's of course important is that we only let a data center enter the grid if the grid can handle the data center and not before.
So that's very important. Regional coordination. So this is a very important topic and I already mentioned in my introduction that in particular if you have regional challenges like the one that occurred this summer, the internal market is one of the key resources to rely on. We've seen that in the region, we've seen it in other parts of Europe, in other challenging situations, so that's a critical resource. But you are right, we need to make sure that that resource contributes the maximum.
And that is a question which has got also something to do with what I said before, namely maximizing the extent to which we use the existing grid for cross-border exchange. Not just, you know, let's build new ones, but also what can we do to use the existing grid? And I will dedicate the work of the agency to make sure that we can give good indications on that to the member states concerned.
The agency has already worked with the commission during the last Southeast Europe price crisis to identify things which can be done in that respect, and it's certainly a work stream that we will continue. And then I will close just by saying a few words of thank you on the issue of, you know, resourcing. It was mentioned a number of times, very important issue. As regards the agency, it is just, you know, our specificity is we need very specialized resources, and they're not easy to find. And if anything, the energy crisis has made them more scarce.
So they're a very precious resource that we have. We need to build on it, and we need the right conditions to attract them to our work. So very keen on ensuring that, and very grateful to all of you for your support. Should I also say a few words of closing?
Christophe Lesniak
Yes, I will. So just to say, some of you are part of the ACER contact group. Some of you will come to Ljubljana, I said, very happy to have you. If others want to get involved with the agency, join the contact group. If you don't want to join the contact group, contact us directly.
We want to have that exchange. We will be available. And then before I close, I just want to say a very big word of thank you because the agency has had an interim period and as the European energy system is going through challenging times, also that interim period has been a challenging interim period. And I'm extremely grateful to Volker Zuleger who has taken over the interim responsibility and led the agency during this period, continues to do so today and will until I actually take office. He's done an extraordinary job and I'm grateful for that and I know that also all the colleagues in ACER are very grateful for that.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Okay, colleagues, apologies for the five-minute delay, but we started late, so let's now proceed to the vote, and may I request to have a voting list as well, just to be able to follow. Not that we don't know, but it's going to be useful. Thank you. Alrighty. Please have your voting cards ready so we can do a test vote first to make sure that all the political groups are present with the precise number of members that have to be here.
Are we all ready? Perfect. Let's do a test vote. Are you ready for the autumn season of the European Parliament? Please vote.
The vote is open. The vote is closed. Good. It seems that we've got a majority, so we can proceed with the vote, and everyone is present with the precise number of the political groups, so thank you for that. And the first item on our agenda to vote today is the establishment of the European business wallet.
So we're voting on compromise amendment one with a show of hands.
Who is in favor? Who is against? Abstentions? Accepted. And now for the final vote we do by roll call vote, so the vote is open.
Please open the vote. The vote is closed. And this is accepted. Congrats to Alvi. And now we vote on the mandate to enter into interinstitutional negotiations according to rule 72.
Please use your voting cards for that, the vote is open. The vote is closed.
And congrats, you can proceed with the negotiations. Good. Now we move to the second item, which is the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the guidelines for the trans-European energy infrastructure. I'm not going to read all the amending regulations. This is the TEN-E revision.
We're all familiar with that. We've mentioned Greece once too many times in this room already. Now we vote on the Commission proposal with the compromise amendment one by show of hands. Who is in favor? Great.
Who is against? Abstentions? And this is carried. And now we go to the final vote by roll call. Please use your voting cards.
The vote is open. Okay. Perfect. The vote is closed. And this is carried.
And now... Yeah, that was a lot of hard work for all the people involved.
So let's deliver lower electricity prices finally. And we vote now on the mandate to enter into the interinstitutional negotiations under Rule 72 by roll call. The vote is open. The vote is closed. And we've got the mandate.
Thank you, colleagues. So we can proceed with the negotiations and deliver on that one. And now the final item on our voting list, please be patient for really one more vote, which is the opinion in the form of a letter on the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2024, all sections, single vote, roll call vote, correct? Yes. So please use your voting cards.
The vote, let's close the other one. The vote is open for this one. And the vote is closed. Perfect, this is carried. Thank you, thank you, colleagues.
Please keep in mind that in 15 minutes we have Commissioner Zakharieva for a hearing with the members of the European Parliament and now we're going to have a short break of about 20 minutes.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Alrighty colleagues. We shall proceed with the next item on today's agenda and I would like to give a warm welcome to Commissioner Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation. We have approximately one hour for this discussion and again it's going to be conducted with the speakers list. All the members who would like to take the floor under the catch-the-eye please put your nameplates vertically so we can take a note of that.
And please do stick to your allocated time because I know there is a high interest in this debate, so let's make sure that all the colleagues have the opportunity to take the floor. And now without a further ado, I would like to give the floor to Commissioner Zaharieva for 10 minutes to make her opening remarks. Dear Commissioner, the floor is yours.
Ekaterina Zaharieva
Thank you, Chair Penkova, honorable members. It's a pleasure to join you in this debate on turning European innovation into industrial leadership. Our exchange is very timely. Over the summer, the Scale-up Europe Fund made its first investments in Europe's industrial and technological future. And just yesterday, the College adopted two proposals aimed precisely at turning European excellence into industrial strength: the European Innovation Act and a Council recommendation on regulatory sandboxes.
So before our exchange, I would like to elaborate on this agenda. The momentum of our innovation ecosystem is undeniable. We host one in four global researchers and more early-stage startups than any other region in the world.
Our tech pool grows by 24% a year, and 80% of our European Research Council projects already produce breakthroughs and major advancements. In 2024 alone, our large companies invested over 300 billion euro into research and innovation, with growth rates in energy and health sectors outpassing both the US and China. Our goal must be to enable this potential, helping it turn into industrial champions, sovereign solutions, and lasting growth. First, through a more conductive framework with the European Innovation Act. Founders tell me this since day one: they need clients, not just grants and rules.
Public markets have a great potential to turn governments from just regulators and founders into first customers, anchoring innovative companies in our Union while making new solutions available to Europeans. Yet, of the over 2 trillion euro that EU governments spend on procurement annually, just 0.61% goes into research and development. One example: during COVID, the Commission procured hospital robots that killed 99.99% of bacteria and viruses at 65% lower costs.
This was possible because six years earlier, a group of Danish hospitals had used pre-commercial procurement to develop this technology. The startup founded for that tender went on to raise 45 million euro and employ over 200 people. Most importantly, it was there when Europeans needed it most. To help replicate this success, the Innovation Act introduces a single European rulebook for R&D procurement and facilitates cross-border tenders, creating efficiency of up to a billion for public buyers. It will also make public calls better suited for SMEs and startups and introduce a new Made in Europe preference.
In parallel, the Act also puts intellectual property to work. Today, 90% of leading companies, innovative companies' value comes from patents, data, or knowledge, which too often remains unvalued and difficult to use as collateral, leaving 18 billion euro of growth funding untapped every year.
This is why the act empowers the EU Intellectual Property Office to build a trustworthy European approach to valuation, connecting investors, companies, and investors, and investing in skills. This will help convert intellectual property into over 10 billion euro of additional annual financing that capital our industry needs to scale. But once a solution has a customer and the capital, it must still be possible to test it and deploy it. This is why alongside the act, the recommendation on regulatory sandboxes will help innovation turn into industry by facilitating testing and deployment, making the path from prototype to production faster and more coherent across our Union. Second, industrial leadership needs an ambitious approach to scaling.
This year we delivered another key measure from our startup and scale-up strategy, the Scale-up Europe Fund. An independently managed instrument backed by EU and some of Europe's largest institutional investors. It has the multi-billion euro firepower needed to help our deep tech companies grow, building the next generation of Europe's industrial leadership.
And as I mentioned earlier, last month our new Scale-up Europe Fund managed by Equity began making its first investment. It co-led a one billion euro fund round of ICEYE, a Finnish company whose founders received their first funding under Horizon 2020. That early backing helped get a small company's innovation off the ground, providing the world of its technology. Today, ICEYE owns one of the global's largest constellations of radar satellites, supplying intelligence to seven European governments. And Scale-up Europe Fund is helping it take its next step.
This is the transformation we are aiming for: from prototype to deployment to global industrial leader anchored in our Union. And this is precisely why we launched the Scale-up Europe Fund. Third, turning innovation into industrial leadership requires strengthening the whole innovation journey. Companies cannot scale with a weak innovation pipeline and with the wrong type of support.
Our proposal for a doubled Horizon Europe is an integral part of this, especially through its links with the future Competitiveness Fund. Together, they will support the full innovation-to-investment journey in a durable way, from basic research through development and testing, all the way to deployment and scaling up. And this is why, honorable members, we need swift progress on these crucial legislative files by the end of this year. We need an ambitious, simpler, and stronger Horizon up and running as of January 28. Honorable members, to conclude, turning innovation into industrial leadership is about making the most of Europe's existing potential.
It's about ensuring that every woman and man with the talent to innovate has the chance to do so anywhere in our Union. This is the journey we need to complete, and this is at the core of my efforts. Thank you, and I look forward to our discussions.
Thank you, thank you, Commissioner Zaharieva.
Tsvetelina Penkova
And now we are going to be moving to the first round of interventions with the coordinators or the group representatives. I remind the rules for this one again. Each one of you is going to have 90 seconds for a question with an immediate 90 seconds for answer afterwards and a possibility for a follow-up for half a minute. And we start with EPP and Madam Laco, the floor is yours.
Eszter Lakos
Thank you Chair and thank you Commissioner to come today here in the Parliament. And I agree with you that the Innovation Act can be an important tool to strengthen Europe's innovation capacities. I would like to ask you two questions, one on the process and the other one rather on inclusivity and you know the widening as you may expect this from me. So could you share please more details on the process that led to drafting the Innovation Act? Because to tell you the truth, the scope is a bit narrower compared to what was expected, especially by the stakeholders.
For instance, I understand that the regulatory sandboxes are out of scope and they will be tackled in another legislation. So what was your consideration that brought you to this choice? And the other one is on inclusivity and widening.
And of course, Member States have different innovation capacities, stronger or less developed innovation ecosystems. Do you foresee therefore any measures eventually or safeguards so that everybody can have access and benefit rather from the Innovation Act due to this divergent starting point? Thank you.
Ekaterina Zaharieva
Yeah, thank you for your two questions. The process of Innovation Act was long. We did organize, of course, the consultations. I know the expectations were higher of the stakeholders, but we believe that we chose the right form, because not everything needs a hard law. We believe that with the already existing sandboxes in European legislation and also with the recommendation, we provide the right tools.
It's, it was also now in the Act, we have the core is R&D procurement or pre-commercial public procurement and intellectual property rights. Access to research and technology infrastructure is a charter which was already adopted.
The first draft was included also access to research and technology infrastructure, regulatory sandboxes and yeah, blueprint for IP. So we decide the three of the main features in the act to be like soft law and I believe that it can work. On your second question and something that why maybe to spare the next question why is delayed because it was postponed couple of times. The goal was to align purely with the public procurement act as well because it's true that both acts deal with public procurement and we believe that adopting it together, consulting it together in the inter-service consultation would be better to be clear that for the future public procurer it would be clear, completely clear which procedure to choose when the two acts are adopted or developed at the same time. On your second question about widening in the European Innovation Act actually it would depend on the governments, would they choose to do pre-commercial innovation procurement.
The truth is that what we should do for both acts is really to support the public administration and train them to use the new, the new procedures. And I would measure the success, to be frank, of the future European Innovation Act of the numbers of public procurement, actually R&D procurement, that are developed in Europe. That's mean that we should, and this was the goal of the Commission, this was the goal of my team and the whole college, to make really easy procedures that are suitable for the startups and newcomers, so to say, and that would be also easy to implement by the public administration, not overburn the public administration. Because if they are too complicated or unclear for them, I would not be surprised if not many public administration, not many ministries or municipalities are using these procedures.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Do you have a follow-up? Okay, perfect. Then we proceed, we proceed to the S&D with Mr. Repasi for a minute and a half. You have the floor.
René Repasi
Thanks very much, Madam Chairwoman, Madam Commissioner, welcome to the committee on this exchange and congratulations for the presentation of the EU Innovation Act. And I hereby would like to invite you to join the club of the critics of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board, otherwise we would have been here much earlier.
Yet my question is more on the last part of your intervention, the reference to FP10 and the Horizon negotiations. I believe you rightly mentioned to the press that you expect a quick finalization of the negotiations and you also had repeated this just in your statement. As you know, one of the main points that the Parliament has put forward and where we are quite different to the Commission proposal and the Council is the relevance of an expert-led governance where there is more autonomy for experts and research experts from Commission services. And we need to bridge this in order to find a quick end of the negotiations. And so therefore that leads me to my two questions.
The first question is, there's a rumor that DG RTD should be dissolved into something that is called DG Invest, where DG RTD might even lose more research expertise than it already has. If that is the case, whether you can comment on this, doesn't it make more sense therefore to have expert-led autonomy in order to secure the research quality of later calls and allocation decisions?
And as a second, as an honest broker between the co-legislators, whether you have a suggestion how to bridge this very difference in terms of expert-led governance between the Parliament and Council. Thank you.
Ekaterina Zaharieva
Thank you, Mr. Paçi. They are really important questions. Some people may think that the governance is the detail, but I believe it's really important because if we, which I believe that we both, the Commission, the Council and the Parliament have a goal to make the next Horizon Europe really simpler and faster, because no matter with whom you speak, everybody starts with that time is of essence. And some innovative startup or researcher, they may not need the funds in 11 months because already this technology is on the market and this gives them disadvantage. So time is really important.
And I hope that, and I believe that the governance, how we structure the governance of the program is a key for that. Because if we put an extra layers of consultation and complexity, that may lead even to longer time to grant. And I give you one example. With EIC fund, we managed to have approval and time to equity eight weeks, which is like sometimes even faster than the private VC's. But at the same time, the grant part in accelerator, it's up to 11 months.
So eight weeks for equity and 11 months for the grant. And very often, actually, the disruptive breakthrough technologies and deep tech technologies, they need both. They need the companies in earliest stage of the development of the technology need both grant, but also equity. So we should somehow, should really try to do everything to shorten this 11 months a minimum at half. I understand this is a grant, this is not an equity.
It's a lot of applications. With the AI, they will become even more. If you see the last data from Marias Podowska-Curie, they beat the last calls, they beat this 17,000, now it's 21. And we have money for 1,600. So can imagine what pressure is towards the administration to proceed this 21,000 and more than 21,000 applications for one call.
So that's mean that we should be very clever.
I believe that experts and the stakeholders, I mean the scientists but also the industry, sometimes know better than administration what is what is coming next. So we believe in this and that's why in our in our proposal for regulation we did propose this observatory that we advise the committee that will plan the programs what to focus. I believe also in bottom-up calls, more open calls. We try to test them in this in the current program because the other criticism that I hear from the applicants and beneficiary even those who already awarded that we are too prescriptive and with the fast development of the AI technology develops so fast that they don't need more more money, they just need more flexibility in the grant agreement to be able to develop their projects on the best possible way. So I believe that we somehow can really find a common ground with this goal.
If we have this goal. And very often I'm saying this publicly and I'm going to say this to you, the simplification is not a slogan. It's not something that we can make a nice article in the regulation saying that this goal in this regulation and the program is very simple, it's more spare cost and time and so on and so forth for the applicants and the public administration but at the same time putting extra layer of complexities and also too prescriptive articles in the regulation that will tighten our hands.
So I sometimes challenge, let's define what we mean by simplifying. For me, it's time to grant. Of course, numbers of pages of applications matters, and numbers of the pages of the work programs matters, we try to shorten them, but if it's shorter application leads to longer time to grant, I don't believe it's true simplification. And that's my message to the Council, but also to respective honorable members of the Parliament. I believe that if we have this real goal, I believe we can achieve it and we are going to find, you are going to find with the Council, I believe, with our help, I hope, a compromised text.
On the RTD, it's, I don't know about this and I don't believe that it will be really something that will improve if it's happening because the expertise in RTD and with the proposal of doubling the budget of Horizon, we will need even more focus on implementing the program.
René Repasi
No, I fully agree with certainly the latter conclusion and also with the analysis on the first question that we have to look at the time to grant and in a sense to look here for a possible compromise bridge. Would you therefore agree that the possible bridge could precisely be to trust more bodies outside of the Commission's civil servants body and actually to give more autonomy precisely to experts to therefore quicker decide on allocation decisions and therefore give more autonomy to decision-making processes outside of the Commission body?
Ekaterina Zaharieva
I believe that ERC works great and I think we should preserve it. I believe that EIC is a bit different story and I believe that we don't need new councils. It doesn't mean that we are not consulting with the experts. It doesn't mean that we are not listening them and it doesn't mean that the member states are not participating because you know that in the second pillar we are more or less going to keep the same structure of how we adopt the program, of course as part of the competitiveness fund program.
But what I believe that we should reform EIC. That's mean not to copy paste ERC because as it is different. It's innovation is different. And I don't believe that if we just copy paste the ERC in EIC it is actually going to improve the situation. What I believe though is yes we need more trust.
And when I talk shorten the time to grant is also trust more to our innovators and our scientists. This is exactly what I mean.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you and we moving to the Patriots for Europe with Madam Nagyová for a minute and a half.
Jana Nagyová
Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you very much Madam Commissioner for coming here. I have maybe slightly different question because last week you were in Prague for the AI summit where the Prague declaration on artificial intelligence was adopted and AI gigafactories formed an important part of the discussions. First of all I would like to thank you for being there because it showed that the summit is important and the European support it.
And the Prague declaration also reflects a clear regional ambition to connect capabilities across Central and Eastern Europe and to give our region stronger role in AI infrastructure.
So therefore Czech Republic, probably as you know, is these days preparing the AI gigafactory project to be submitted in the first slot under EuroHPC call in order to serve Czechia and other countries around. So we hope it will be successful. But obviously there are always some buts and I'd like to help you, maybe you will know the answer, maybe not, maybe you will at least give us a clue. Because there are two things which concerns me. First of all, whether the Commission considers energy security and sufficient domestic capacity to be a strategic criteria when selecting the concrete proposal, whether you have an idea or not, because this is something which we obviously need to take into account.
And second thing is that gigafactory is currently not explicitly defined as a strategic infrastructure, but it should be, logically, obviously depends then on a Member State. And my question is whether there are some safeguards which will prevent publicly co-financed, because this matters, it's publicly co-financed AI infrastructure from ultimately being transferred to or controlled by a non-EU undertaking in the future after.
Whether you have no idea, just...
Ekaterina Zaharieva
Sorry, first of all, I also was glad that I have been in Prague. It was really good, first Central and Eastern European countries' AI summit. There were many excellent, excellent companies and AI startups and some of them scale-ups present there. Of course, there were ministers from the regions and in general the stakeholders. It was very inspiring for me to be there because as I have very often said that talent is everywhere in Europe and we have really to support, and that's why I finish actually, every man and woman, no matter where they are, to be able to develop their innovation and to create a company and to scale the company.
That's the goal of the Commission. So, it's, I'll give the facts that the region is very active actually and they already seven AI factories there. So I'm not surprised that some of the Member of the Central and Eastern European countries will apply for for gigafactory.
The process it will be very transparent. It's a lot of competition. But I don't know the details about the so I cannot answer your very concrete questions about the criteria. But what I can tell you that it will be very, very transparent and smooth process, I hope. And what is important that we have a lot of private interest in investment in to put it like data centers.
The huge private interest in most of the member states and of course energy is key. Always when we talk about AI, we talk about data, we talk about capital, we talk about talent, we talk about compute power, but we should also talk about energy. And what is important in developing the data centers, not actually to leave the citizens with perception that actually that's lead to increase the price for the the rest of the sector, being the households, but also the other industry. So that's why it's important our data centers to be developed on our way. And we should also be sure that they also energy efficiency.
We have the most energy efficiency actually supercomputer is in Germany in the world. So we have shown that we know how to do it.
So we should also focus on technology that also spare energy developing the data centers.
Jana Nagyová
No, just just just to thank you and briefly explain because obviously we discussing now ETS, we are discussing all these all these energy issues and as far as all these gigafactories are supposed to be co-financed both from EU side as well as national side, we think that these things very very much matters. And very often happened in the past, I'm not saying this is the case, that these things really didn't match, you know, that one hand didn't know what the right hand is doing. So this was more or less. Thank you.
Tsvetelina Penkova
This was more a more a comment, but we we all understand where it's coming from. So let's we don't have anyone from ECR on this in this round on the speakers list, so we're moving to Renew with Mr. McNamara.
Michael McNamara
Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner, for coming in this morning. I suppose I've two questions.
How will the Commission ensure that the considerable purchasing power of European public authorities is used strategically to create lead markets for European technologies rather than financing using public funds to finance R&D only to see resulting technologies intellectual properties scale elsewhere? So what concrete measures will be put in place and what concrete targets are in place? And then the second one is with regard to the the innovation gap is also of course a financing gap particularly when innovative companies move from research and early stage funding towards scale-ups and commercialization. So does the Commission have concrete objectives or indicators for the amount of additional private capital it expects the Innovation Act to mobilize and how will it assess whether European companies are becoming better able to scale with the assistance of European private capital?
Ekaterina Zaharieva
Thank you for the these two really good questions. The EU Made in EU that gives me opportunity to explain the Made in EU criteria in the European Innovation Act. It's European member states and also the countries with which the the European Union has free trade agreements that also cover R&D procurement. That's means R&D procurement access to the European companies to the those countries. These are not many countries in the world at that stage.
It's Western Balkan countries and EEA. That's quite clear EU made in you. And also the made in you criteria is at least 50% of the R&D activities to be made in one of those countries. So that's I think I'm clear on answer on the first question. The funding is really important.
How I believe that this will help? In Prague, for example, when I met, but it's not the first time, just the last time that I heard this, I hear this non-stop. If you help me to find clients, I'll raise much easier the needed capital from the private sector. And even the last time in Prague, I heard, don't give me money, I manage to raise the funds, it's not a problem for me. But what is a big problem for me and even develop the programs that actually help my private clients, big corporation, to understand that this is a good technology for them, somehow to de-risk when they procure from me.
So if the countries and the governments are the first client, they also will help those innovative companies to find a private sector clients. This will help them to raise funds. But we cannot wait this to happens and Innovation Act also to be adopted and then to start implement it. And that's why we developed the Scale-up Europe Fund. I believe that the Scale-up Europe Fund may grow and even the fund manager believes that it may reach seven billion, not five as it was planned.
And that will be something that definitely will show that it's profitable, there will be high return because they are very promising European companies. And this will motivate more private sector investment in R&D. Something else, also there will be should be some incentives for the private sector and that's why we did adopted Savings and Investment Union strategy, which is really very comprehensive strategy. Also there in the European Semester, there are recommendations for every Member State, very concrete one. I think last time except Sweden, but all the rest received a recommendations also linked with boosting the R&D, including investment from the private sector.
Michael McNamara
No I think the commissioner fairly answered the questions. Thanks.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. Then we move to the to the Greens with Mr. Blossager.
Damian Boeselager
Thank you Commissioner. You have a very cross-cutting portfolio and so I would like to ask you for your help with your other commissioner colleagues if I may. I'm currently negotiating for example in the ECON committee file which is called the IORPS directive to allow occupational pension schemes to also invest in venture capital funds. There I could use your help. But I'm also negotiating the budget the seven-year budget on the national recovery what's it called national regional plans.
And then we have the ECF at the same time. So this is all the money of the European Union for the next seven years. And I try to implement startup quota in both programs in some form. I would say in the ECF it's even more relevant. But sadly nothing is happening there and startups and SMEs are again I feel falling a bit below the cracks.
So I was just wondering, could you help maybe both when it comes to the IOPS directive with Commissioner Avakaki, but also specifically and especially with the ECF to get a startup quota in so that we don't even, you know, have to always necessarily fund with grants, but that we can actually use the procurement power of the public sector and of EU money. Thank you.
Ekaterina Zaharieva
I believe that at least with my colleagues, I feel quite a strong support for the startups and ECF that you mentioned, it's one of the key, if you want, to increase the investments in the startups and R&D. I hope you have a successful negotiations and thanks for fighting for innovative startups. So I'm not in the details of the file and maybe we can speak later what what are your ideas so I can share with of course with my colleagues. And I completely agree with you that what you said, that they need clients and that's why for me it was so important to give to develop a really good innovation act focused on the R&D procurement. And something that I'll use this momentum to share that many people think that Europeans are very risk-averse.
I think the problem and challenge for us is to make the clients not risk-averse, to be open to embrace new technologies and to procure from newcomers.
And we developed, we are in the process of developing a corporate network, which is like to bring together the big corporations together with the very promising startups that we have and show them the possibilities that these startups are developed. And maybe yes, to use the existing programs to incentivize the corporations to start procure from innovative companies. So we are thinking how really to use especially the second pillar of the future Horizon Europe more in that direction.
Damian Boeselager
Sorry, my quick follow-up would be, I think if you're a Ministry of Finance or like let's say you're spending money, it's often very easy to go for large projects because you get a lot of the money done and you have done your job fast and you don't have to follow. So I think what I would recommend is a 5% startup quota in the ECF. It would mean that 100% of the money needs to be checked whether it's going to startups or not, which gives us visibility about something that we don't currently have. So even if it's 1%, which I wouldn't recommend, the startup quota would help with the 100%.
So if you could fight for a 5% startup quota in the European Competitiveness Fund, I think it could actually live up to its name and drive competitiveness. Thank you.
Ekaterina Zaharieva
I think now the decision is in your hands, in the Parliament, in the Council, so I wish you all the best. Otherwise, for me, it sounds as a good idea, but of course we should first understand more exactly what you mean and in all the windows or where. But I think not only the quotas are important. I think what is important is really the speed that these instruments reach them, the instruments to be really suitable for the startups, because when you speak about public procurement, some people may say, but even now in the existing directives, there is nothing that should prevent the procurers to actually procure. But the truth is that very often financial requirements, for example, have a previous clients, give bank guarantee or insurance, it's absolutely impossible for a small startup, or the startup that the example that I gave, which was created actually because of this tender.
And that's, I believe, the problems that we solve through the European Innovation Act. It's not only the criteria, which is not only pricing criteria, but it's also the financial requirements or the previous clients. I have been a procurer many times, and I was even discussing with my team how many things have been procured in the room when we discuss the Innovation Act, it was only me.
And I know, actually, as a procurer, how difficult it is, even if you want to bring new technologies, because then a lot of questions will be asked: why you didn't choose the company that has a previous contract, or previous experience, or more money in the bank account, or office building? Why you choose a company which is absolutely just created? And there were questions that were asked. And that's why I think one of the reasons why we have 0.6% only is because the public procurer didn't dare sometimes to make such kind of procurements. And I believe that with this simplified, unified European legislation, we will actually enable a lot of European public procurers to be more brave.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you, Madam Commissioner. So this concludes the first round of interventions, and now we're going to move to the second round. We have so far four people on the speakers' list, and the time does allow us to have more participants. So if you want to join, please do indicate. And we start with, this is for one-minute interventions, but of course we are going to be reasonable in terms of the fact that we still have time.
So EPP and Mr. Hetman, the floor is yours.
Krzysztof Hetman
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'm going to speak Polish, so please use your headphones. Szanowna Pani Komisarz, ja także chciałem dołączyć do podziękowań w związku z Pani dzisiejszą obecnością, ponieważ temat jest niezwykle istotny i ważny. Bardzo się cieszę z tych informacji, które Pani przekazała o tym, że jest zwiększane finansowanie dla startupów, dla innowacji, badań na terenie Unii Europejskiej w związku z pracami nad nowym budżetem Unii Europejskiej. Cieszę się z tej informacji, którą Pani podała, że mamy 25% startupów więcej w przestrzeni europejskiej niż gdziekolwiek indziej na świecie. Tylko problem polega na tym, że jest jeszcze druga strona medalu, która jak fakty pokazują, 30% tych startupów w przypadku rundy C, czyli gdzie przechodzą do skalowania globalnego, uciekają nam, wyjeżdżają poza Unię Europejską.
50 firm najbardziej innowacyjnych, rozwiniętych, których wartość przekracza 1 miliard euro, 50 z 61, które mamy wskazane tutaj na terenie Unii Europejskiej jako te najbardziej innowacyjne, najbardziej rozwinięte, 50 z 61 także wyjechało poza Unię Europejską, do Stanów Zjednoczonych w większości. Więc okazuje się, że pieniądze to nie wszystko, choć one są niezwykle istotne i potrzebne, bo ten system finansowania musi być, chociaż w przypadku Unii Europejskiej finansowanie środkami publicznymi jest zbyt ostrożne. Ale chciałbym panią komisarz zapytać o coś innego. Co z deregulacją? Ponieważ te firmy nam wyjeżdżają dlatego, te najbardziej innowacyjne, dlatego, że mamy niestabilność regulacyjną, że mamy przeregulowany całkowicie ten system.
Nawet w przypadku pozyskiwania środków europejskich na funkcjonowanie tych firm, czy też na to, aby dokonać tych badań, ta biurokracja po prostu jest tak obciążająca, że przedsiębiorcy, naukowcy zwyczajnie z tego rezygnują. Zwyczajnie z tego rezygnują. I moje pytanie brzmi, pani komisarz, czy Komisja Europejska ma pomysł na to, w jaki sposób dokonać deregulacji przynajmniej w tym obszarze? Dziękuję bardzo.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Usually in this round we take all the questions, but in this case, yeah, let's follow that, there are not too many, so you can address them all afterwards. Now we're moving to S&D and Mr. Gonçalves, please, you have the floor.
Sérgio Gonçalves
Thank you very much, and it's great to see you again, Commissioner. I'll have two questions for you on two different topics. So, starting in 2024, the European Commission President backed the creation of an European-funded air defense shield. In 2026, so this year, the European Commission President presented a work program to this plenary called the Europe's Independence Moment. Two days ago, we have news that the Commission and yourself is now pursuing closer ties with Israel on our defense and space, and that the boss of the Israel Space Agency was here meeting with the Commission and yourself.
My question to you is quite simple and is: how is Israel and this genocidal government contributing to our independence and to the independence program that the Commission has presented? Second, but and lastly but not least, last year I've sent you a letter asking for the creation of the European Riviera to attract the best world researchers to Europe.
You have launched a great initiative that is called Choose Europe for Science to attract these researchers to come into Europe. Now we are seeing Canada doing the same. And Prime Minister Carney will be with us next week and he has just announced that he has managed to attract 64 top professors to Canada with a budget line of investment of 300 million equivalent to 300 million dollars. What I wanted to ask you is where do we stand, what's the point of situation, can we make sure that this will be a previsable and standing policy of the Union and can you also commit to a budget budget budget increase of this nature for the next years. Thank you very much.
Malika Sorel
Merci. Madame la Commissaire, merci infiniment pour toutes ces... Ah oui, OK. Je souhaitais vous remercier Madame la Commissaire pour toutes ces propositions qui sont bienvenues, qui sont de très grande qualité. Je voudrais vous proposer deux points parce que je pense que nous pouvons aller plus loin.
Est-ce que vous prévoyez une aide pour faciliter le dépôt des brevets ?
Nos entreprises, nos start-ups sont confrontées à une lourdeur et à un prix très élevé du dépôt de brevet, en particulier la recherche d'antériorité. Le deuxième point, c'est lorsqu'elles veulent passer la protection à l'international, il faut à chaque fois payer pour ajouter un prix, un prix supplémentaire. Qu'est-ce que nous pourrions faire ? Et autre point qui me tient à cœur, nous sommes véritablement confrontés à une hémorragie de nos cerveaux, en particulier de nos ingénieurs qui partent de nos pays vers les États-Unis. Est-ce que vous avez prévu de prendre ce sujet à bras-le-corps car sans eux, il n'y aura pas d'économie d'innovation demain ?
J'ai des idées, si vous voulez nous pouvons travailler ce point ensemble. Est-ce que vous, vous êtes prête à prendre ce sujet ? Je trouve qu'on n'en parle absolument pas assez dans l'Union européenne. Je vous remercie.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. And now allow myself to also ask a question or make a comment to Commissioner Zaharieva. So first of all, I really welcome your remark from the intro which which basically was in line that we have to be turning innovation into industry leadership.
We spoke a lot about the gap Europe faces with some of its global competitors, but we see that there is another issue in the EU because there are significant differences and discrepancies in our union itself. So my question is, what are the measures or how do you plan to ensure that the Innovation Act is going to help companies also in less developed innovation ecosystems to scale up and access finance and enter the European market, rather than benefiting only the regions where those conditions, more or less, even though not ideal, are already established. Thank you.
Ekaterina Zaharieva
Thank you for excellent questions, and actually particularly thank you for this question for this article because it's nothing true in this article, so I'll be able to clarify this. What what we do for the promising scale-ups to stay in Europe, of course it's not only the money, but it's a main one of the main issue. And a second reason is how fast they are able to access to the single market. That's mean everything, it's mean also to tackle the problem with fragmentation, cutting the red tape and all the and all the things that you spoke about.
I think we have a quite comprehensive approach. First, we work on the simplification. We have already 11 omnibuses adopted by the Commission at different stages, some of them adopted, and I really believe that this will, this will change. Also with sandboxes, it's also some that it's a real simplification because it will help them to test in the real environment. It is also will help the public authorities to understand better the new technologies and then to issue the permission faster.
But I believe it's really the fragmentation is key. Because if in the European scale-up takes twice longer to access the neighboring country or the single market, then it's no surprise that they are less funds from private capital here. So the one Europe, one market roadmap is key, and I'm very glad that the Parliament, the Commission and the Council agreed on this roadmap with the clear timeframe end of next year. So that's key. If you ask me one, what's the main action that we should all aim to achieve, and that's tackle the problem with fragmentation.
This will bring also more private capital. And fragmentation is an issue also with the lack of capital market union. Because even if they find, for example, Scale-up Europe Fund help them to scale here, when they decide to exit, and we have two excellent quantum companies who exit this summer, and they exit in New York. It's good that they organized double exit and Helsinki in one of the case and second in Paris. But that's a key question as well.
But of course, red tape, cutting the red tape, simplify the procedure, issue the permission faster, those are really key questions and I believe that we should all together should have the goal to achieve this. But yes, it's key. The second question, there were two questions actually. I met the chairwoman of the Israeli Space Agency on her request. We discussed the women in space because she is one of the leading professors women.
They raised a question about why they are excluded from Article 22.5 from the calls of space. So we never discussed this issue and they are not part of the European Defense Fund. I don't know from where it comes. On the second question, Choose Europe, it's absolutely key.
The fiercest competition in my opinion in the world, it's not about capital, it's about talent. And that we are going to see more and more, not only from countries as Canada, but also others from Asia, India, everywhere. So that's why we launched Choose Europe and I'm really glad that it was a true Team Europe approach. We increased, you know that the President announced 500 million, now it's already close to 1 billion because we saw huge interest. There are more than 100 initiatives from the Member States and we see results.
Actually, in the last call of starting grants of ERC, there were 20 scientists from United States relocated here and one from Canada. But we should continue, yes, it's a key initiative. We should have budget every year, sufficient budget every year. And I mentioned Marie Skłodowska-Curie. We should also focus on early career researchers.
And if we have 21,000 applications and only money for 1,600, it's also frustration among the applicants. So we should increase the budget. I'm very glad that the Parliament is very supportive to the ambitious Commission proposal. And the next couple of months will be key. Are we going to support the scientists who want to choose Europe, not only because of the funds, but also because of the ecosystem, because of the values, because of the freedom of scientific research that we are going to embed through the ERA Act in European legislation later this year?
We are going to present it in the Commission. Those are the things and the reasons, not only the funds as I said, why I believe the world scientists will choose Europe. On the patent, yeah, they're really expensive. I'm agree. And it's not only to patent, but then to keep the patent.
And so we, I am agree with you that we may think as part of the funding costs which are eligible to this to be able to cover. Also when the universities create the technology transfer offices or small funds for spin-offs, they should also have dedicated funds for support the innovators, the scientists to patent.
But that's an issue, yeah. And we, we, that's a good idea, I think we should really think in that direction as well. And also how to keep the people, I think it was very, very similar to the previous question, not only STEM. First, we should increase the people who actually decide to study STEM. And we have this action plan which is developed by my colleague, EVP Minzato.
And if you see the data, unfortunately, especially for women and girls in some of these STEM professions, the data are not positive, they are actually going down, the numbers. And when we discuss, for example, women in science, women in innovation, to have a women on higher position in science and women in higher founders in the startup, first there should be a women in universities who choose this profession. And in Prague, for example, it was only one woman founder in the room. There were, I think, like 15 people, only one woman. And when I ask, and also she was actually space AI startup.
And that's why, that was one of the reason why I met the professor because she's the only, I think, woman AI, chair of AI space agency in the world. And I, when we discussed with her how, how to support the women, she said, you know, I was the only woman in my class in the university.
That's something that we should really also try to motivate women and girls. But for the our engineers, I think that more and more of them choose to return or choose to stay because I think we are predictable and we have values. And those values are really key to attract scientists and researchers to work in Europe and to stay in Europe, engineers as well. The best how, the best talent follow the best opportunities. When we create for them the best opportunities to develop their ideas, to create the company and to scale a company, they will stay.
That's how I believe. And that's the goal of the all initiatives that I present on your attention. How the European Innovation Act will help? I believe it will help by simplifying the procedures and give the governments the right tool, even with small amount of money, to make R&D procurement. And of course, as I already was able to answer the previous, one of the previous questions, it's really key because I see talent everywhere.
I see really one of the most, most advanced companies in Central and Eastern European countries.
And actually one of the first investments in European Scale-up Fund, one of the founders and the co-founders was from the region. And I believe more companies will come from that region. But I believe also the government should do their role. How they can do their role by incentivizing the private sector to invest more. Number one, tax incentives are key, are really key in my opinion.
Tax deduction, tax incentives, different different measures that we did recommend for every country through the European Semester. They are concrete recommendations for every country. And when I meet the governments from that region, I said, please read the European Semester because a couple of years ago it was not dedicated to the research and innovation and member states should realize that now they have concrete, very, very good recommendations how to enable, how to motivate investments, how to support the innovative companies and private sector. But of course also the programs, simplify the programs. Some of those countries decide to adopt a special AI a special Startups Act.
They ask me, do we need?
I said, yeah, it's really good, it's really good signal that you support the innovative startups. But if you also embed startup-friendly articles in different legislation, it also can work. In the tax legislation, in the public procurement legislation that give access to the public procurement for the newcomers, SMEs, in your programs that you develop, funds of funds that you have also to be focused on the innovative companies. Those are the measures. But the European Innovation Act, I think, will help them to develop this really very important easy procedures for procure R&D.
And last but not least, also to cross-border public procurement, which are absolutely impossible. And this will also give a chance for the companies to participate in the tenders from the neighboring countries or the countries in everywhere in the European Union.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you, thank you, Commissioner Zakharieva. I think we are almost at the end of the debate. If you just allow me one small remark to the question by Madame Solier, probably not known to many members of the European Parliament, but we already have the unitary patent in place, which finally started existing in 2023 after being postponed for almost 10 years.
And this was because of the push from colleagues here in the European Parliament. We still don't have all the countries, actually, all the member states joining that, so we still have some more effort to do, but it also depends on us. It's a step in the right direction, and of course everything that Commissioner Zaharieva added to that needs to be done as well, but we also have to do our job in the respective member states. Thank you so much for being here with us. It was a very productive and very detailed and specific discussion.
We wish you good luck with everything and we hope to see you soon. Thanks.
Благодаря много. И аз се надявам същото. Има ли, има ли? А кой не беше? Испания.
18 са в момента, точно 18 от 27. Значи преди няколко месеца, когато ме сигнализираха, не бяха 11, значи все пак два са се присъединили. Май да, трябва да го погледна и аз, обаче ние това го следим.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Dear colleagues, may I please kindly ask you to start taking your seats so we can proceed with the last item on today's very busy agenda at ITRE Committee.
We're going to kick off in about 30 seconds. Perfect. So, I would like to welcome Mr. Peter Burke, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and Madam Neale Richmond, Minister of State in the same ministry with special responsibility for trade promotion, AI and digital transformation. Thank you all for being here with us today in order to present the program of the Irish Presidency in the field of industry, SMEs and any other key topics that you'd like to touch upon. Those are very important policy areas for ITRE and we look forward to hearing the developments in the Council.
Just a few logistical matters, we're going to have approximately one hour for this discussion, which is conducted in accordance to the preliminary prepared speakers list and I would like to invite all the members who would like to participate in this debate in the catch-the-eye format to put their nameplates vertically in the holders.
Please do stick to your allocated time, as we have a strong interest and probably many participants in this debate. And without further ado, I would like to give the floor to our guests for approximately five minutes each, but of course we can offer some flexibility on that matter for their opening remarks. And first I would pass the floor to Minister Burke, the floor is yours.
Peter Burke
Gabh mo leithscéal, a Chathaoirligh, agus tá an-áthas orm a bheith anseo inniu le mo chara, an tAire Neasa Smith. Cathaoirleach, honorable members, on behalf of myself and Minister Smith, I'm honored to appear before this committee. As Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, I greatly value the role of the European Parliament and of this committee in particular in shaping policies that have a meaningful impact on industry, the energy market, research institutions, and of course citizens across the European Union. In assuming the presidency of the Council of the European Union, we have adopted the motto Ní neart go cur le chéile, strength through unity. This motto embodies our commitment to close cooperation with the European Parliament, the European Commission, and member states in advancing our shared priorities and delivering tangible results.
the core themes guiding the work of the Irish Presidency are competitiveness, values, and security, which are reflective of the pillars of the Strategic Agenda 2024 to 2029 as adopted by the European Council. Today's discussion provides a valuable opportunity to reflect on the progress made in the relevant priority areas,
consider the challenges that still lie ahead, and explore how we can continue to work together to achieve positive outcomes for citizens across the European Union. Enhancing our competitiveness is a key priority for this Presidency. In order to secure an economic future which meets the needs and expectations of its people, Europe must act urgently to enhance competitiveness and productivity.
Ireland assumes the Presidency at a pivotal moment for EU competitiveness.
We must act urgently to enhance European competitiveness and productivity. The European Competitive Fund represents a shift towards an EU industrial policy instrument aimed at accelerating strategic technologies, strengthening economic security, and attracting private capital at scale. It will also help address long-standing challenge in Europe, namely that innovative companies often struggle to scale. The ECF aims to provide a more seamless financing pathway for SMEs, startups, and growing firms, helping them remain and expand within Europe rather than seeking capital elsewhere. Ireland looks forward to working with Member States, Parliament, the Commission, and industry to turn the ambition of the ECF into action.
A key priority for the Irish presidency is to progress the negotiations on the outstanding articles of the ECF, Article 50 and Article 65, subsection 5, which were excluded from the partial general agreement secured by the Cyprus presidency. These articles relate to third-country participation in defense and space activities under the ECF. Ireland also plans to hold trilogues once the European Parliament negotiating mandate is received. We are at your disposal to start exchanging at technical level to prepare the ground for upcoming negotiations, and we should then start negotiations as soon as our mandates are ready.
The presidency is strongly committed to the EU single market reform agenda. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of the EU economy and society providing 85 million jobs and driving digital and sustainable innovation. They account for 99% of all businesses in the European Union. 24 million European SMEs create quality jobs anchored in local communities. Nevertheless, SMEs still face major uncertainties, supply constraints, labor shortages and not always fair competition.
Furthermore, they continue to struggle with the consequences of Russian aggression against Ukraine, high energy prices, supply chains disruptions and other global economic challenges. Volatility and unpredictability in the current economic context have made it more difficult for SMEs to do business. We need to make business easier and faster in Europe and significantly reduce administrative, regulatory and reporting burden for SMEs. SMEs are essential to provide solutions and innovative products and services that are needed for the EU's transformation towards a green, digitalized and ever-growing economy. Reducing energy prices and decarbonization is another vital element of our overall competitiveness agenda.
The Industrial Accelerator Act, identified as a priority by leaders at the European Council, will play a major role in this space. This is reflected in the ambitious timeline for completion by the end of this year. The Irish presidency is fully committed to that timeline and will work with member states to progress the file as quickly as possible while ensuring a focus on developing quality legislation that delivers on the overall ambition and aligns with the principle of simplicity by design. We intend to make steady progress in the months ahead and are grateful for the constructive engagement of all member states and Parliament on this complex but impactful file. We've a lot of work to do together and we owe it to the European industry to live up to the accelerator promise in the proposal's title.
Europe's industrial competitiveness is on the line. We have a clear mandate to take action. The Accelerator Act is a key piece of the EU's response to ensure our strategic and critical sectors and the skilled workforce that underpin them are resilient in the face of turbulent global markets. I am of course aware that stakeholders hold a wide range of views on the Industrial Accelerator Act.
Discussions of the Council have been detailed and intensive and I look forward to similarly robust and constructive discussions with the Parliament when appropriate. Achieving the ambitious timeline for agreement across institutions will depend on the shared ambition and willingness of all Member States and Parliament to be pragmatic and constructive in agreeing a well-designed text. All Member States share the common goals of the IAA, namely accelerating industrial decarbonisation, enhancing economic security and simplifying permitting. Ireland remains committed to ensuring that regulation is simple, of high quality, legally robust, easy to implement and avoid any excessive administrative burdens for industry. Space is another key enabler of Europe's competitiveness, security and resilience, and Ireland will work to progress important legislation in this domain too.
Firstly, the EU Space Act aims to create a safer, more sustainable and resilient space through a single set of rules for space activities in the EU. We will work to advance the text for this towards Council position as soon as possible. We will also aim to rapidly advance the EU Space Services Agency regulation, which will ultimately ensure that the implementation of the EU's ambitious space agenda is placed on a sustainable and long-term footing.
We will work to make substantial progress to enabling the Council position on the file during our presidency. The presidency will also strive to progress other key initiatives such as the Chips Act 2.0, which has been specifically designed to strengthen the internal market. Chips Act 2.0 was adopted as part of the tech sovereignty package, and this package is aligned with the Cloud and AI Development Act, a strategic roadmap for digitalization and AI in energy, and the EU open space strategy, open source strategy. Chips Act 2.0 aims to strengthen the semiconductor ecosystem and supply chain resilience while boosting domestic demand. To demonstrate our commitment to progressing this initiative, the Irish presidency has designed this file, designated this file as a priority during our tenure.
On the topic of resilience of supply, the Irish presidency is acutely aware that strengthening the EU's capacity to secure critical resources, particularly of scarce critical raw materials across the entire value chain, will be necessary for Europe to implement renewable energy, green and digital transitions.
Critical raw materials are also necessary to deliver on our defense readiness objectives. Ireland is actively participating at the EU CRM board and subgroup level on implementation of relevant aspects of the Critical Raw Materials Act to accelerate the achievement of the CRMA and Resource EU objectives, preserve and expand EU production of primary and secondary CRMs, strengthen the EU's resilience supply against disruptions, and chart a path towards faster diversification of critical material supply chains. As I highlighted earlier, the Irish presidency has carried out its responsibility, guided by the spirit of our motto, Ní neart go cur le chéile, strength through unity. This principle reflects our conviction that the best outcomes are achieved through cooperation, respect, and a sense of shared purpose. I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before the committee today.
We look forward to maintaining a strong and constructive partnership with Parliament in the months ahead, and we work collectively to advance the interests of citizens throughout the European Union. I now hand over to my colleague, Minister Smyth, who will address the committee. I look forward to your views and engaging with your questions following Minister Smyth's remarks.
Niamh Smyth
Thank you, Chair, honorable members. It is a pleasure to join you today and to contribute to this important discussion.
I welcome the opportunity to engage with members of this committee and to build on the remarks already made by my colleague, Minister Burke. I'd like to reiterate the remarks made by my colleague on the important role by the European Parliament, and particularly this committee, in influencing policies that affect businesses, energy markets, research institutions, and the everyday lives of citizens across the European Union. Throughout the presidency, Ireland has sought to foster open dialogue, practical cooperation, and a strong spirit of partnership with the European Parliament, the Commission, and the member states. At a time when Europe faces significant economic, social, and geopolitical challenges, our ability to work together across institutions is more important than ever. By combining our experiences, our expertise, and our shared commitment to the European project, we can develop effective responses to those challenges while creating new opportunities for citizens and businesses throughout the Union.
I look forward to outlining our approach in greater detail and to hearing the perspective of committee members here today during our exchange.
As Minister for Trade Promotion, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation, I am determined to lead on the digital and AI transformation pillar of the One Europe, One Market roadmap, which is central to strengthening our competitiveness, our innovation and of course productivity across the European Union. In that context, the Cloud and AI Development Act represents a critical step towards securing Europe's long-term competitiveness and technology leadership. As a cornerstone of the European Commission's technological sovereignty package, the Act seeks to ensure the European Union has the cloud computing, AI and data processing capacity necessary to support future economic growth, drive innovation and deliver high-quality public services. Cloud and AI capabilities are no longer simply technology enablers, they are strategic assets that underpin the competitiveness and resilience of our economy. They form the foundation of innovation across sectors such as healthcare, energy, communication, financial services and public administration.
If Europe is to compete successfully in an increasingly digital and AI-driven global economy, we must ensure that businesses, researchers and public authorities have access to world-class digital infrastructure. The ambition behind the act aligns closely with the objectives of the One Europe, One Market roadmap, reducing strategic dependencies, accelerating digital transformation and creating the conditions for European businesses to innovate, scale and compete internationally. CADA raises important questions relating to resilience, to security, innovation and competitiveness, and these issues will need to be carefully examined by member states over the coming months. As presidency, Ireland's role is to facilitate an open and constructive discussion among member states and to support a thorough examination of the CADA proposal. This includes ensuring all perspectives are heard and that the potential implications for Europe's digital ecosystem, competitiveness and technological resilience are fully understood.
The objective of the presidency will be to help advance discussions in a balanced and evidence-based manner with a view to identifying areas of common ground and supporting informed decision-making as negotiations progress. As Minister for Trade Promotion, AI and Digital Transformation, during our presidency I strongly support measures that enable businesses to innovate, to grow and to compete more effectively.
By simplifying regulatory requirements and creating clearer rules for data sharing and access, the EU's Digital Simplification Omnibus Package will help accelerate digital transformation across the European economy. This Omnibus Package is part of the Commission's wider mission to simplify and streamline the EU's regulatory framework. The Digital Simplification Package aims to unlock opportunities in the use of data, recognizing data as a fundamental resource in the EU economy. Compliance with the rules should come at a lower cost, deliver on the same objectives and bring a competitive advantage to responsible businesses. The new EU Data Act regulation will provide a single, clear rulebook for businesses, reducing competitive barriers and compliance burdens for SMEs in particular.
Users of connected devices or recipients of services related to connected devices have the right to request access to their data and its transfer to third parties. This greater data portability allows us to easily switch to other providers, supporting and fostering competition within the market. The Digital Omnibus Package takes a dynamic, ambitious and risk-based approach. It will remove regulatory overlaps, reduce burdens and support compliance. It is vital in improving competitiveness at EU level, in line with the Draghi report.
Both Letta and Draghi reports underline the need to reduce regulatory and administrative burden on EU companies. The new EU Data Act regulation will support innovation and economic growth for businesses, helping to unlock new opportunities and foster a competitive data market through the creation of a harmonized framework for businesses and individuals on fair access to and use of non-personal data. Chair, honorable members, the issues before us require continued collaboration and a willingness to work together in pursuit of common objectives. Ireland has been committed throughout its presidency in promoting solutions that are ambitious, practical, and focused on delivering real benefits for people across the European Union. Engagement with Parliament is an essential part of that effort, and we greatly value the contribution of this committee in advancing those shared goals.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to address you today and for the insights and perspective of the members will provide. We remain committed to maintaining a close and productive partnership in this committee and with the European Parliament as a whole in the period ahead. Thank you, Chair, I look forward to continuing our discussions, working together to deliver positive outcomes for citizens across the European Union.
Go raibh maith agat.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you, thank you for your opening remarks to both Minister Burke and Minister Smyth, and I do appreciate the very detailed information that you have provided on specific legislations and the priorities you're going to be pursuing on that matter. I'm sure this was extremely useful for the colleagues in the room today. We are going to proceed with the speakers in one round of questions, so each one of you would have two minutes, and I'm calling for colleagues who haven't been added to the speakers' list yet and want to participate, please do indicate it in the next few minutes so we can take a note of that. Without further ado, I will start with Mr. Seán Kelly from EPP for two minutes, the floor is yours.
Seán Kelly
Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh, agus fáilte roimh an mbeirt Airí, Peadar de Burca agus Niall Ó Gadhra, agus comhghairdeas libh as ucht an dea-obair atá déanta agaibh go dtí seo, agus go háirithe an fhuinneamh agus an díograis agus an diongbháilteacht atá agaibh chun an jab is fearr a dhéanamh ar son saoránaigh na hEorpa idir seo agus deireadh na bliana nuair a thiocfaidh deireadh le bhur dtréimhse san uachtaránacht.
Anois tá ceist agam ar son mo ghrúpa, an EPP. So, the Commission's proposal for the Industrial Accelerator Act introduces conditions on foreign direct investment in certain strategic sectors, which among other things would require a 49% cap on foreign investors' shareholdings, a requirement for a joint venture to be created between the foreign investor and an EU entity, technology transfer of the investor's IP and know-how to the EU entity, and a minimum of 50% of the workforce comprised of EU nationals. I can understand the logic of such measures as regards contributing to Europe's autonomy and control over such investment. However, the Draghi report calls for 800 billion per year in investment to achieve policy ambitions. Stable partners with whom Europe have a long history of cooperating may look to other investment opportunities with lower levels of bureaucracy at a time when Europe is in dire need of private sector investment.
For a country like Ireland with a successful FDI-led growth model and a small open economy, is the introduction of such measures a cause for some concern given the impact it may have on our ability to continue attracting inward investment? And how do we find the balance here between ensuring Europe is open and attractive to inward investment and strengthening our strategic autonomy?
And finally, more broadly, what progress does the presidency believe it can make on this file between now and the end of the year? Go raibh maith agat, a Uachtaráin, agus arís fáilte roimh a bheith anseo. Go raibh maith agat.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you, Seán, for being also very precise in terms of time. Thank you, we appreciate that. Next one on the speakers' list from the S&D, that's going to be myself for a question. So I will also try to be as specific and precise as the ministers were in their intro remarks. So we all know that the backbone of the European economy are our SMEs with like 99% of all businesses in Europe.
They guarantee like quite high level of employment with the two-thirds of our labor force basically being employed in SMEs. What we see at the moment is that the artificial revolution accelerates and this has the potential to open a massive gap. On one side, we have the global tech giants that have unlimited more or less capital and computing power. And on the other side, we have millions of traditional European SMEs that risk being completely left behind.
And this is probably a challenge and an obstacle we're going to be we're going to be facing in the upcoming years. And of course we cannot allow the the SMEs from Europe to to be just passive observers of what's happening on the global scene. Having said that, Ireland is currently leading in the the Council and trying to to help us champion EU competitiveness. So my question is really regarding your your thoughts in terms of SMEs and AI. Because beyond the tech startups, what concrete economic efficiency sorry initiatives is the Irish presidency introducing to help the more traditional non-tech SMEs like local retailers, manufacturers, logistics firms to afford and integrate AI tools in their daily operations?
Because this is a question which is coming from all different different parts of our our unions. And do you plan to put a bit more pressure to leverage some of the EU funding and training programs to to ensure that actually the small businesses can access the skilled workers they need to be able to successfully deploy the the AI tools?
That's going to be from me. And now we are moving to the next colleagues on the speakers list. This is going to be Mr. Torselli from ECR. The floor is yours.
Francesco Torselli
Thank you chair. I will speak in Italian so please if you want to put your headphone. Thank you. Anyway, noi abbiamo letto con attenzione il programma della presidenza irlandese e faccio i complimenti perché in gran parte è estremamente condivisibile. Sicuramente è condivisibile quella parte laddove avete voluto lasciare la trasformazione digitale all'interno del capitolo sugli strumenti per la competitività e per la capacità di innovazione e non creare un capitolo a parte.
Questo ci trova fortemente concordi e occorrerà capire insieme quali quali siano le strade da percorrere per tradurre questa visione in qualcosa di concreto perché crediamo che l'AI, il cloud, l'edge computer, ma al tempo stesso i data center, le reti, i satelliti siano parte dello stesso ecosistema, della stessa strategia. E da qui l'importanza di atti regolatori della Commissione come il DNA, l'MSS, il Chips Act 2.0.
E arrivo alla prima domanda. Vorrei chiedervi quali sono secondo voi, secondo la presidenza irlandese, gli interventi prioritari per creare le condizioni affinché questi gli investimenti necessari alla trasformazione digitale vengano effettivamente realizzati, diventino qualcosa di concreto. L'altro passaggio è sulla semplificazione. L'Irlanda si è spesa con chiarezza su questo tema, l'ha sottolineato anche la presidente, come le nostre imprese, le piccole e medie imprese che rappresentano il tessuto principale dell'Europa debbano fare i conti spesso con norme che di difficile comprensione, ma spesso con la sovrapposizione normativa. E da questo la seconda domanda.
Secondo voi quando parliamo di digital simplification intendiamo soltanto un alleggerimento delle norme o avete in mente vogliamo fare qualcosa per evitare la sovrapposizione normativa, cioè aggravare con regolamenti che si sovrappongono proprio le imprese e le aziende più piccole del nostro territorio? Grazie mille e ovviamente tanti auguri per la vostra presidenza.
Michael McNamara
Thank you very much, Chair. Minister Smith, Minister Burke, I'd like to welcome you both. You, Minister Burke, you started by explaining what nirtach a chéile means and I suppose one of the areas where Europe needs to nirtach a chéile most is with regard to AI and cloud development. And Minister Smith, you outlined the absolute necessity of that. We have European companies who have to store their data in cloud servers that are outside the control of European governments, even if they're located in government, even if they're located in Europe.
We have European data, even highly sensitive data, which is beyond the control of European governments, even if located in Europe. I suppose the fact that Ireland has so many data centers could be a strategic advantage in some respects if, of course, there was any sovereign control over those data centers. And one of the big obstacles to that is the Cloud Act in the United States. So what is the appropriate European response to that?
Because it's something that simply while it's good of course to foster our develop our cooperation with the United States, this is something that would not be tolerated by the current United States administration or indeed anywhere by a kill switch is maintained. It is said that if if governments in locations where these data centers are located try to exert any sort of power over them, that the United States will reserve the power to essentially turn them off or use them for their will. So that is important. Also the Cloud AI Development Act. Minister Smith, I just wonder would it be unfair to characterize your your description of it as sort of akin to Saint Augustine, oh Lord let me be good but not just yet.
The Cloud Act is good but we're not going to do anything with it. Because there's a feeling here at large in the European Union that Ireland isn't really going to advance this, we're going to collect views, which is, you know, fairly weak and fairly nothing really. But this is something that is urgent and you've acknowledged it's urgent. So why aren't we moving it forward? Is it because this poses a particular problem for Ireland?
And if so, then does that not cut to the idea that the chairmanship is an opportunity to rise above our our own member states' needs and look at what Europe needs as a whole? And Europe does need to progress this and progress it quickly and at scale.
So why aren't we doing that? With regard to the Cyber Security 2 Act, it obviously has very ambitious proposals around high-risk sourcing and stripping out high-risk materials from the supply chain. But this has huge cost repercussions, not just for telcos, but of course for telcos, but for practically every sector, including SMEs and sectors that are hugely important across the Irish economy, across the European economy. So are we moving towards this determination of high-risk being determined by the Council, by the Commission, or by individual member states? Because I mean, that's hugely important.
So what is our direction of travel in that regard? And lastly, going back to AI, the Irish presidency has put AI at the center of its program, notwithstanding the fact that there don't appear to be any concrete plans to advance the CAD, the Cloud and AI Development Act, but I look forward to your clarification on that. There's an AI summit in Dublin in less than a month's time. Can you tell us what it's about? Is there any policy directive envisaged in that, or is it kind of like a trade show for tech bros, like a ploughing championship, but instead of big new tractors, we'll have big new AI companies demonstrating what they're... or is there actually some policy that's going to be put forward in this?
Because I'm being asked a lot by people here, by companies involved in the AI space, what is it about? And while there is a website in two languages, English and Irish, it says nothing as of yet in either language about what it's about. Now, I appreciate it's being accompanied by an event on copyright, which Minister Smith outlined, and I very much welcome that. But what's this summit about and who is it for? Is it a trade show or is there going to be some policy initiative proposed or discussed?
Thank you.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you, and we have two more colleagues on the speakers' list, and then we're going to be turning to ministers for the replies. And now from S&D, we have Mr. Ecke.
Matthias Ecke
Yeah, thank you very much, Chair. Thank you, ministers, for your presentations and for the lively debate that we will have. Very entertaining remarks from my colleague McNamara. I want to also elaborate on that a bit. We know that Ireland is a backbone of our digital economy in Europe, which is important given its, yeah, given its value-added prosperity potential, competitiveness potential that the digital economy has.
But in the same time, as of course some of us are asking what role the presidency will play in the digital rulebook, because it's affected by, Ireland as such is affected so much.
Then I come to the Cloud and AI Development Act. We've seen now that some member states are hesitating with the Commission's proposal when we see that we have certain categories of data storage sovereignty that come with the Cloud Act and then gives some centralized conditions for that. How would you like to, you know, prevent a deadlock in the Council where we all end up with national sovereignty over European tech sovereignty, which I think is a wrong way to do? So especially given the importance of that business in your country, can we expect with your expertise that you bring countries together that the CADA is really making a difference? And the other question comes about the Chips Act.
You mentioned it as a priority, which I welcome because it's a very important file also for us here in the Parliament. But in the same time, the Chips Act as such has no financing in it. It completely relies on national funding, but also on the new ECF, on the European Competitiveness Fund.
What will you do to prevent especially the ECF from cuts, given that we've seen some of the member states in the European Union are aiming for significantly cutting the proposed budget, the Commission's proposal? And we all know that it quite likely will be that second pillar, the pillar of ECF, of Horizon, that will be significantly cut if these cuts will be implemented. So what can you do also in the realm of budget from an economic and industrial policy perspective to make the Chips Act work? Thank you.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. And last on our speakers list for two minutes as well is Madame Sorale from the non-attached.
Malika Sorel
Merci Madame la Présidente. Je souhaitais remercier les ministres irlandais pour leurs interventions. Vous le savez, la situation économique dans certains secteurs au sein de l'Union européenne est extrêmement préoccupante. Elle est même dramatique, nous le voyons. Le secteur par exemple de l'industrie automobile traverse une crise historique dans plusieurs de nos pays et cela est directement lié à des décisions politiques.
Donc je souhaiterais savoir ce que vous, vous proposeriez en dehors de ce que l'on dit habituellement, des réglementations etc., pour faire que certaines décisions politiques ne soient plus jamais prises sans tenir compte de l'avis des principaux concernés et en particulier des experts, et je veux parler ici des ingénieurs.
Parce que si on les avait écoutés pour le secteur de l'automobile nous n'en serions pas là. Je voudrais vous soumettre quelque chose, que pensez-vous d'une règle qui consisterait à dire deux réglementations supprimées pour une nouvelle réglementation ? C'est-à-dire un principe qui guiderait le politique. Deuxième point, beaucoup de nos pays européens traversent une situation extrêmement dangereuse qui remet en cause le projet de l'Union européenne. Je trouve pour ma part qu'il n'y a pas assez de campagnes de communication pour montrer aux citoyens européens tout ce que l'Union européenne apporte et en particulier aussi les motifs de fierté.
Donc est-ce que vous seriez prêt à réfléchir à des campagnes de communication autour de nos leaders mondiaux, on a ASML, on a d'autres grandes entreprises et aussi une question pratique puisque vous avez parlé de l'espace, est-ce que vous seriez prêt parce que la politique et les résultats s'incarnent aussi à organiser un événement populaire pour l'accueil de notre astronaute Sophie Adenot qui incarne à la perfection au travers de l'ESA la réussite du projet européen et là aussi c'est pour faire connaître à nos concitoyens la force du projet européen au travers des projets que nous menons tous ensemble dans l'Union européenne ?
Je vous remercie.
Tsvetelina Penkova
Thank you. Minister Burke and Minister Smith, we had a lot of questions from various topics and fields. As you see, our members are really interested in many of the aspects that you have presented, but of course they're adding the additional color to some of them. So I will pass the floor now to both of you for reflections and answers and comments based on what you've heard for up to seven minutes each, I would say, since there were too many questions. And I will start again with Minister Burke and please do include some of your concluding remarks probably in those answers now.
Peter Burke
Thank you, go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. So thank you very much for all the members for their contributions, which provide a huge amount of value as we go about our presidency.
First of all, for MEP Seán Kelly in relation to the Industrial Accelerator Act, which has been set out as a key file in the One Europe One Roadmap and has a very ambitious deadline to get to a general position by the end of this year, and one which Ireland takes very seriously. And when you look at the challenge in trying to achieve which is going to be pretty significant, 20% of the Union's GDP growth from manufacturing, which are about 14.3 now, leaves us with a very stark challenge and critically to protect so many strategic sectors within the Union. And that is going to be very, very important and how we operationalize that mechanically in terms of our decarbonization, accelerating the green transition, looking at licensing, looking at consents, ensuring that permitting is more efficient, all that work is going to be crucial. And critically you mention, which is so important in connection to the direction of foreign direct investment in the negotiations, just to advise you that we are at a very advanced stage. I think Ireland is very clear as the presidency, and I speak as the presidency, how important FDI is to the Union and what it brings in terms of competitiveness, in terms of ideas, in terms of capital, which are critical to its success.
But also I'm very much aware that there are challenges in terms of some very significant investments from some strategic sectors from third countries. And we have to be careful regard to that. So it's about getting a balance which I think we will achieve. And we know the value of what leaning into the globe brings to the European economy. And hopefully we can achieve that as well as all our other ambitions contained in the Industrial Accelerator Act, which needs to be a game changer for Europe.
We're very, very clear on that from Ireland's perspective. Just from Svetlana, your...