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Procedure : 2022/2063(INI)
Document stages in plenary
Document selected : A9-0268/2022

Texts tabled :

A9-0268/2022

Debates :

PV 21/11/2022 - 18
CRE 21/11/2022 - 18

Votes :

PV 22/11/2022 - 7.16
CRE 22/11/2022 - 7.16

Texts adopted :

P9_TA(2022)0401

Verbatim report of proceedings
XML 20k
Monday, 21 November 2022 - Strasbourg Revised edition

18. Implementation report on the European Innovation Council (short presentation)
Video of the speeches
PV
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  Die Präsidentin. – Als nächster Punkt der Tagesordnung folgt die kurze Darstellung des Berichts von Christian Ehler über die Einrichtung des Europäischen Innovationsrats (2022/2063(INI)) (A9-0268/2022).

 
  
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  Christian Ehler, rapporteur. – Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Innovation Council (EIC) is a centrepiece of the European innovation policy. It’s a new instrument that was set up to do things differently. An essential part of the Green Deal, the industry’s policy strategy of the EU, Europe’s innovation agenda, it was most likely the most valuable contribution to the new Horizon Europe programme.

A one-stop agency where innovators could ask for support through grants as well as equity. The EIC had a great start during its pilot under Horizon 2020. It was a popular instrument with a growing reputation in the venture capital market and I am talking not about a small instrument, it is the biggest public instrument in Europe in the venture capital market for deep technology.

That is how it was supposed to continue on the rise in Europe as well but it ran into a wall of a settled bureaucracy inside the European Commission because this new approach to support innovators was pushing the boundaries of the budget implementation as traditionally done by DG BUDG. This fight or fear about loss of reputation led to a yearlong or more than yearlong fight between three DGs. Personally, I don’t think it reached even the political level, but it blocked the biggest innovation programme for more than a thousand start-up deep-tech companies – we selected more than hundreds – which had been waiting more than a year for the money which had been dedicated to them originally.

And so the programme is no longer a question of the reputational risk. Who is going to manage that? The Commission itself, the EIB, not known as a racing horse in the capital market if I may say. The question is no longer about reputational risk, it is about reputational damage for the Union. It had been blocked. We lost the confidence of start-ups in Europe that we would have that interesting instrument, that challenges-addressing instrument.

We need, and Parliament needed, to step in through that. The whole thing is a disgrace. In the public sector, someone would have to resign. If your proceeding of a billion budget and you’re not able to allocate that budget in the private sector, you would have to resign. We needed, as a Parliament, to publicly call out the problems created by the Commission.

We needed to publicly set out a positive agenda for the EIC and we did; through great collaboration between all political groups, we quickly developed a shared vision of the future of the EIC as co-legislator. We delivered a list of recommendations for the Commission that would restore the transformative nature and ambition of the EIC. A key recommendation is that the implementation of both the equity and the grant components are under full control of the Commission. This ensures that our start-ups really experience EIC as a one-stop shop. It also ensures that investment decisions are informed by the strategic interest by the Union. To deliver on strategic interests of the Union, the EIC also needs to be able to be an investor on its own. It needs to be able to be a sole investor, to take the lead in an investment around and to take a major share in a company. It is the only way we can fix the market failure of the European VC capital market where we don’t have the needed investment in deep-tech technology. And the EIC needs to deliver investment decisions in line with industry standards.

Deep-tech start-ups cannot wait months and months for European institutional machinery and we need the money now for the sector. We also made some recommendations to address some challenges in this programme. Europe has a major issue with the underrepresentation of women in this sector. This is costing us billions of euros each year and the rise of it deprives us of great innovations that could have been done. We still have an innovation divide on our continent. This is reflected in the low participation in successful start-ups from some European regions.

To sum it up, we appeal to the Commission now to act. This is one of the valuable instruments that is needed for us to reach the 2030 goals because we need innovation, we need creative start-ups. So I appeal to the Commission to come to terms and let this common undertaking run.

 
  
 

Spontane Wortmeldungen

 
  
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  Maria Grapini (S&D). – Doamnă președinta, domnule comisar, un subiect extrem de important. Cea mai mare greșeală în managementul privat este ca atunci când e criză să tai fondurile de la cercetare, de la inovare. Din păcate, în spațiul public și iată și aici, Comisia Europeană s-a gândit chiar acest program să îl oprească.

Nu putem promova în primul rând dezamăgirea firmelor care au așteptat și au crezut în acest proiect. Al doilea, fără bani de inovare nu putem să avem start-up-uri, nu putem să avem societăți comerciale mici, mijlocii sau chiar foarte mari, cu tehnologie modernă.

Este absolut de neînțeles de ce chiar acest program a trebui să fie blocat și sigur că și eu fac apel pentru că lucrez cu mediul privat. Sunt vicepreședinta Comisiei pentru piața internă, vicepreședintă a Intergrupului pentru IMM-uri și știu ceea ce înseamnă nevoia de a investi în inovare.

Așadar, cheia este la dumeavoastră, domnule comisar. Noi, ca și Parlament, susținem. Nu cred că există vreun eurodeputat care nu înțelege de ce tocmai în criză avem nevoie de bani pentru inovare, pentru cercetare, pentru retehnologizare.

 
  
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  Ivars Ijabs (Renew). – Paldies, prezidentes kundze! Eiropas Inovāciju padome ir instruments, lai pārvarētu Eiropas atpalicību inovāciju jomā, kas ir īpaši svarīgs uzdevums šajos sarežģītajos ģeopolitiskajos apstākļos, un mūsu pienākums kā Eiropas institūciju pārstāvjiem ir izturēties pret to atbildīgi. Tas līdz šim nav pilnībā izdevies, un šīs kavēšanās ar naudas izmaksām dēļ institūciju savstarpējām cīņām un domstarpībām ir absolūti nepieņemama, un tam ir jātiek novērstam. Un tas ir tas, uz ko mēs aicinām arī Komisiju un Padomi. Un turklāt, protams, mums ir jādomā par īpašas Eiropas Investīciju institūcijas izveidi kapitāla daļu pārvaldībai, kā arī par vienas pieturas aģentūras izveidi topošajiem inovatoriem un topošajiem pieteikuma iesniedzējiem. Tikai tādā veidā mēs varēsim panākt šo tehnoloģiju izcilību un arī to komercializāciju, kas mums visiem ļaus piedzīvot tehnoloģisku izrāvienu Eiropā. Paldies !

 
  
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  Lina Gálvez Muñoz (S&D). – Señora presidenta, el presente informe goza de un importante consenso entre todos los grupos políticos porque todos somos conscientes de la importancia que tiene salvar la brecha en términos de innovación que tenemos con otras regiones, sobre todo ahora que tenemos que avanzar en resiliencia, en autonomía estratégica y acometer, además, las transiciones verde y digital.

Necesitamos realmente que la aplicación del Consejo Europeo de Innovación se haga de manera ambiciosa y transformadora, de una vez. Necesitamos realmente que se ponga en funcionamiento.

Hemos pedido expresamente que se cierren brechas importantes en materia de innovación, como la brecha de género, y también las brechas regionales existentes entre las distintas regiones y los territorios europeos.

Asimismo, para terminar, hemos pedido un mejor acceso al Acelerador por parte de las pymes, que son realmente el corazón de la innovación en Europa.

 
  
 

(Ende der spontanen Wortmeldungen)

 
  
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  Johannes Hahn, Member of the Commission. – Madam President, Mr Ehler, honourable Members, the European Innovation Council is a crucial instrument for the implementation of the New European Innovation Agenda, no doubt. This Agenda aims to position the Union as a global leader in deep—tech innovation to address our deepest societal challenges. This ambition remains the same against the current economic downturn.

The European Innovation Council is a major novelty of the Union’s innovation policy. It’s key in providing support to high—risk, deep—tech start—ups with a unique mix of grants, equity investments and innovation ecosystem services.

The Commission is currently finalising the work programme of the European Innovation Council for 2023, with a budget of over EUR 1.6 billion, it will continue to help identify, develop and scale up breakthrough technologies and game—changing innovations.

The Commission shares the views in the report that the European Innovation Council Fund should be a key player in supporting breakthrough innovation in Europe. I am happy to say after taking yet another step in the required restructuring, and the appointment of an external fund manager in September, the EIC fund is fully operational. It has already taken 35 investment decisions worth around EUR 190 million and many more decisions are expected in the coming weeks.

Under the EIC accelerator, offering grants and equity investments, 313 companies have been selected for support since June 2021. The total grant funding to these companies is EUR 680 million and 185 grant agreements have already been signed. Over half of the 313 companies – 184 exactly – are also proposed to receive equity investments ranging from EUR 1.5 million to EUR 15 million each through the EIC fund. The EIC fund is fully engaged to deal with the backlog of equity investments.

I would also like to reassure this House that the essential features of the EIC will be fully preserved as the Commission is moving towards indirect management of the EIC fund, as foreseen in the Horizon Europe regulation.

I would like to underline that, first, the Commission will continue to steer the direction of investments through the EIC annual work programmes, on which Parliament will continue to be informed in full transparency. Second, the investment decisions of the external fund manager must follow the investment guidelines endorsed by the Commission covering the terms of investment. Under these guidelines, the EIC fund will continue to be fully able to invest alone when the company is not ready for a funding round. The Commission will take a close look at the suggestion made with respect to the work of the Executive Agency EISMEA.

Once again, I would like to thank also the rapporteurs for this work, also on behalf of my fellow Commissioner, Mariya Gabriel, and – if you allow, because DG BUDG has been addressed – to say a few words. First, with the experience of a former business person and a Minister of Science and Research, you have all my sympathy for this kind of project, and I believe it’s something extremely important because it is also addressing some, let’s say, of the market failures we unfortunately see in Europe.

But it is also uncharted territory for a public administration, at least at the Union level. There are some Member States who are already rather successful on this. But the huge majority of public administration, for them, it’s, so to say, a new territory. This is why, and I can fully understand your impatience, it took us some time to find the right model. May I say, not, unfortunately, but I have to admit, I spent much more time with your colleagues from the Budget Committee, from the Budget Control Committee, from the Court of Auditors and we have tried to anticipate potential concerns in order not to enter into a situation where we are finally blocked or criticised. The whole initiative is, I wouldn’t say at the brink, but there might be questions. Therefore, again, please understand. There have also been some personal issues, but also this has been, I think, cleared. Therefore, I’m very confident that now we are in the rollout phase.

Indeed, this instrument should show its capacity, its potential, because if it works, it should be also a role model for many other public administrations in our Member States, because it’s definitely something where the Union for the huge majority of Member States can serve as an excellent, interesting, and let’s say, positive role model, where others should follow. That’s why I think we should have – and we have – a joint interest that this is really a common success story of all of us.

 
  
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  Die Präsidentin. – Damit ist die Aussprache geschlossen.

Die Abstimmung findet am Dienstag, 22. November 2022, statt.

 
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