Informal Competitiveness Meeting

Discussions will focus on how European research can best respond to the major challenges facing the world in the 21st century. Ministers will also consider ways of accelerating growth for small and medium-sized businesses in Europe and examine how the European Union can help business face the foreign challenges of a globalised economy.

Valérie Pécresse, the French Minister for Higher Education and Research will chair the meeting on 17 July. The following day’s session will be jointly chaired by Hervé Novelli, the French Minister of State to the Minister for the Economy, Industry and Employment with responsibility for Business, Trades, Small Industry, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Tourism and Services, and Jean-Pierre Jouyet, the French Minister of State for European Affairs.

The first day of the informal competitiveness meeting will bring together the ministers for research from the 27 Member States of the European Union. Discussions will focus on preparing and coordinating European responses, in terms of research, on how best to tackle the major problems facing society today such as an ageing population, climate change and energy, the food crisis and the information society.
This meeting is the first step in the implementation of recommendations set out in the Green Paper on the European Research Area (ERA). The main purpose of the two-day event is to prepare the groundwork for the decisions that will be taken at the Competitiveness Council meetings on 25-26 September and 1-2 December next.

Discussions will cover four main issues:

•    Food production, water and ecosystems: the new face of agriculture. Europe’s research agenda to 2020;
•    Europe’s energy supply: how research can help to guarantee sufficient quality and quantity by 2020;
•    The main challenges of the Information Society;
•    Health and Europe’s ageing population in 2020.

Valérie Pécresse and Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for Science and Research, will present the main conclusions from the first day’s meeting at a press conference scheduled for 4.45 pm which will also be attended by Ondřej Liška, Minister for Education from the Czech Republic, and Lars Leijonborg, Swedish Minister for Higher Education and Research.

The second day of the Informal Competitiveness meeting on 18 July 2008 will bring together ministers for the internal market and industry from the 31 Member States of the European Union and the European Free Trade Association.

The ministers will discuss the Small Business Act for Europe – an initiative put forward by the European Commission – which aims to unlock the growth potential of SMEs across Europe.

The Commission’s proposals seek notably to improve the conditions for investing in SMEs, to cut red tape, facilitate access to public procurement and to promote the creation of private enterprise throughout Europe.

Ministers will also consider ways of reinforcing fair and free international competition laws and will examine best practices from non-EU countries with a view to opening up balanced markets. They will continue the Community debate on the impact of European Union legislation on business competitiveness in a globalised economy. Talks will also focus on how best to promote European interests internationally in terms of defining business norms, monitoring government subsidies and the transition to an economy with a minimal carbon footprint. One of the key issues on the agenda will concern efforts to combat the trade in counterfeit goods more efficiently.

Hervé Novelli and Jean-Pierre Jouyet will conclude the informal competitiveness meeting by a press conference at 16:30, together with Günter Verheugen, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry, Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition, and Charlie McCreevy, European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services.

Informal Competitiveness Meeting - Research Seminar outcome (Report)
 
Informal Competitiveness Meeting - First steps of the European "Small Business Act" 

• Updated: 22.09.2008

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