Ireland's European Commissioner Maire Geoghegan-Quinn has launched what she has described as the most important piece of legislation of her five-year mandate, the Innovation Union.
The proposals cover a range of ways in which Europe hopes to improve innovation as it is applied across the board in order to lift the EU out of its economic crisis and to help it compete with the emerging economies of India and China.
Speaking to RTÉ, the Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science described the situation facing innovation and invention in Europe as 'an emergency'.
She said that while Europe had excellent researchers and universities, ideas took too long to get to the market place due to a fragmented research market, a lower amount of venture capital compared with the US, the lack of a single EU patent, and the growing outsourcing of research and development to emerging economies.
Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn said that improving innovation was the only way to boost sustainable, well-paid jobs and to cushion the effects of globalisation on the European economy.
Through the Innovation Union, she is proposing new innovation partnerships, co-ordinated by the European Commission, in order to tackle issues like energy efficiency, climate change, the ageing population, and healthcare.
These partnerships would operate at EU, national and regional level with money set aside to encourage innovation. They would attempt to reach a number of concrete targets in these fields through better use of funds, by reducing or speeding up regulation, and by encouraging investment through better use of public procurement.
Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn gave the example of an Irish city like Cork's plan to introduce electric buses. If such a plan were co-ordinated at EU level with other cities interested in the same idea, then a greater economy of scale would encourage greater investment in electric bus technologies.
The same model of public procurement could be used in the problem of the ageing society in order to boost more investment into pharmaceuticals, for example, and thus boost Europe's inventiveness.
There will also be an innovation scoreboard with 25 indicators to measure member states against each other in how they develop innovation and research.
There will be greater use of the EU's €86 billion structural funds (2007-2013) to boost innovation, and more access for small firms to funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) in order to leverage greater interest from venture capital.
Obstacles should be lifted that prevent greater mobility and financial security among European researchers.
Member states will be encouraged to reach the EU target of spending 3% of GDP on research and development, with a major push to finally create a single EU patent - an issue which has dogged successive Commissions for 40 years. The Commission believes that increasing R&D investment to 3% of GDP could create 3.7 million jobs.
EU won't dictate on tax, says commissioner
Meanwhile, the commissioner has said that any decision on raising corporation tax will be a sovereign decision for the Irish Government.
Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn said the European Commission was in no way dictating to the Government on how it should reduce its budget deficit to 3% of economic output by 2014.
She described the relationship between Brussels and the Department of Finance as open and transparent, and said that there was enormous appreciation in the Commission of the efforts by the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan to reduce the deficit, as well as appreciation of the level of pain the Irish people would have to undergo in the process.
Last week, the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn prompted question marks about the future of Ireland's 12.5% corporate tax rate. Mr Rehn said he would not rule any measures out in Ireland's efforts to cut spending and raise taxes to lower the deficit. He also said that, for the next decade, Ireland could no longer be considered a low tax economy.
Speaking in Brussels this morning Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn said any decision on corporate tax would be strictly a matter for the Irish government. She also said there was no suggestion of Ireland's having to seek support from the €750 billion bail-out fund set up by the EU and International Monetary Fund.
