Atividade Parlamentar Audição do EPP Group no Parlamento Europeu

Today's EPP Group hearing on Horizon 2020, co-hosted by MEPs Maria da Graça Carvalho and Christian Ehler, has been the occasion to analyze in details the opportunities offered by the new framework programme. The EU is an important global leader in many technologies but it faces increasing competition from traditional powers and emerging economies alike.

Maria da Graça Carvalho MEP and EPP Group Rapporteur for the Specific Programme implementing Horizon 2020, defended during her intervention that "Europe requires a strategy for growth to counterbalance the effects of the austerity measures that have recently been taken: Horizon 2020 is an immediately available programme that should play an absolutely fundamental role in achieving robust rates of growth".

Ms Carvalho added "It is essential that Horizon 2020 is simple, that it is properly funded that it strikes the right balance between bottom up and top down research and the programme should cover the whole innovation cycle. Horizon 2020 should aim to foster balanced participation from across Europe reflecting its diversity and human potential", concluded the Portuguese MEP.

"In the global negotiations concerning the MFF 2014-2020, Horizon 2020 is the specific programme that occupies more space in the overall budget and the attention of all the stakeholders all along the research and innovation chain have great expectations on the opportunities it can address. We are debating  about Horizon 2020 and me, as all the members, are very much concerned about his importance, mainly to give concrete answers to the needs of growth and new jobs that the whole Europe and each Member State require", said Amalia Sartori MEP, Chairwoman of the Industry and Research Committee.

"The economic crisis in Europe would have been less severe had the Member States invested more in research and innovation since 2000. The aim is three per-cent of GDP. And what has been achieved is only two per-cent. With Horizon 2020, Europe has the chance to make up for it. For the sake of sustainable growth and jobs", said Christian Ehler MEP, Rapporteur on the "Horizon 2020 - Framework Programme for Research and Innovation 2014-2020: rules for participation and dissemination".

The Commission proposal will now be discussed by the Council and by the European Parliament, with a view to adoption before the end of 2013. Funding provided by Horizon 2020 will be easier to access thanks to this simpler programme architecture, a single set of rules and less red tape but the budget for Horizon 2020 will depend from the negotiation on MFF.