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Bloc’s political representative underlines importance of science, following suggestions approach is shortsighted
Senior EU politicians have met to discuss the need for the bloc to adopt a more strategic vision, at a time when research leaders are warning politicians not to forget the importance of research and innovation once the immediate crisis of the pandemic is over.
“Owing to the challenges of the last 15 years, the EU has started to behave more like a problem-solving union instead of a community adopting a strategic approach,” Slovenia’s minister of foreign affairs Anže Logar (pictured right) complained at the Bled Strategic Forum on 1 September.
The forum, which takes place annually in the lakeside town of Bled in Slovenia, is an important event for political leaders from central and south-eastern Europe but has particular significance this year because Slovenia is hosting the July-December presidency of the Council of the EU.
Need to steer the ship
In his opening address to the forum, Logar said the EU’s need to shift from being reactive to proactive was the reason “why the Slovenian presidency has put topics such as resilience [and] open strategic autonomy…at the top of its priorities”.
He added: “We need a vision of where we want to see the EU in the future. It is imperative we identify strategic responses to the challenges facing both our citizens’ everyday lives, and those Europe as a continent might yet see. We must identify those policies where the EU is a global example and incorporate the lessons learned from the crises of the past decade.”
Council presidencies coordinate the EU-related activities of the bloc’s member state governments in rotating six-months stints, and have some influence over policy priorities for the duration of their term. The main research priorities for the Slovenian presidency, for example, are gender equality, the European Research Area policy package for raising research standards, international cooperation and R&D partnerships.
Speaking at the same event, the Council permanent president Charles Michel (pictured left) highlighted how the EU’s decision to “trust in science and research” had resulted in it being a leading producer of vaccines for the Covid-19 pandemic. He said the bloc had achieved “great successes” in its response to the pandemic, and that this provided “a lesson for the future”.
Michel made his remarks a day after the interim president of the European Research Council, Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, criticised politicians for being shortsighted in trying to cut funding for research and innovation.
In a blog post marking the end of his term, Bourguignon warned politicians not to focus on “immediate research results and narrow policy objectives” but instead “give bright minds the freedom to follow their curiosity and scientific instinct”. He said: “It is in this way that we can best prepare for an uncertain future.”
Doubling down on climate and digitisation
In contrast to Logar, Michel insisted at the forum that the EU had been operating with two main strategic focuses since before the pandemic: climate change and digitalisation. He said the pandemic had “only doubled our resolve to implement this strategy”, adding “we do not need to invent an additional strategy for recovery—we already have one”.
But Michel also warned that exerting influence on the world stage would be the EU’s “greatest challenge in the coming years”. He said the bloc must protect its interests and values, and that global developments meant “we do need more strategic autonomy because we want to be stronger and more influential, we want to have greater impact and we want to strengthen our alliances”.
Slovenia’s prime minister Janez Janša (pictured centre) warned in his opening speech at the forum that securing alliance within and outside the bloc would be “the central question of our time”. He asked: “How can we understand and implement the values and mechanisms of seeking consensus, mutual respect, subsidiarity and solidarity?”
Leaders will be discussing this question and others during the second day of the forum, as well as over the coming months at the broader Conference on the Future of Europe, about which Bourguignon has also expressed concern that research and innovation are not priority topics for discussion.