Marisa Matias
Christian Ehler
Magdalena Adamowicz
Maria Carvalho
Vlad Marius Botos
p.c:
David Sassoli
Ursula von der Leyen
Paolo Gentiloni
Thierry Breton
Dubravka Suica
Margrethe Vestager
Vera Jourova
Maros Sefkovic
Turin 24/4/2020
Ladies and gentlemen,
I permit myself to address to you as members of the Committee of the European Parliament “Industry, Research and Energy”. Your commission is scheduled for April 28 for the discussion (and possible approval in first reading) of two proposals, concerning a revision of the regulation governing the EIT, and its re-financing for the period 2021-2027.
Such situation does not seem to me very logical. In fact, after the Coronavirus crisis, everything has changed in the world, so that preceding policies should be in any case modified. As President Ursula von der Leyen has said “…because this crisis is different from any other, so must our next seven-year budget be different from what we know. We will need to frontload it so we can power investment in those crucial first years of recovery”
“We have to deliver on a European budget that is able:
– To invest in digital start-ups.
– To explore the potential of artificial intelligence.
– To anchor Europe’s position as the world’s leading research region.
– To offer young people a better future in all parts of Europe.
– To address the root causes of migration.
– To allow us to demonstrate solidarity in cases of humanitarian or natural catastrophes.
– To allow to build the European Union of Security and Defence.”
Against this background, what sense do make a new regulation and of a new agenda for technology which had been initiated, under completely different circumstances, before the Coronavirus crisis, and which are discussed during the same, without waiting for the new pluriannual budget of the UE?
The Coronavirus crisis will leave Europe in such difficult situation, that all priorities must be reassessed.
Secondly, the Conference on the Future of Europe should decide first of all about a thorough technological transition of Europe, which up to now is not satisfactory at all, because the gap between Europe, from one side, and the US and China, from the other, is growing and growing. By the way, in a document diffused very recently by the European Parliament (Annex 1) ,it is said that the investments in R&D in China have bypassed the ones in Europe since 2013. Under these circumstances, it is very unlikely that Europe may be a global player wihin 7 years, if we do not change dramatically our technological policy.
The approach followed up to now, where new technological developments in defence, aerospace, digital, biology, transportation, environment, communication, organisation, are so much dispersed as to result ineffective , has to be reconsidered thoroughly, with the idea of a sole planning organisation, common to EIB, Commission, Council, Member States, Regions, Companies and Cities, which may concentrate this huge effort of the next few years, for challengng, from one side, DARPA, and, from the other, “Made in China 2025”.
For this purpose, we are publishing just now the book “The European Technology Agency, with a proposal of Associazione Culturale Diàlexis for the Conference on the Future of Europe”(Annex 2), which we hope will be read and considered in time by European legislators, since it includes a coordinated study, comprehensive of an articulated proposal for the Conference. We are sending the book to members of parliament and relevant commissioners, urging them to consider its arguments and the proposals contained in it. Finally, we are also preparing a second book, devoted to a debate among intellectuals, politicians, European Movements and civil society, on technological humanism in Europe after coronavirus. We hope we will receive contributions from everybody, in time for influencing the ongoing debates. Of couse, we think, in foist instance, of the addressees of this communication
We will follow up the matter during the next few months, for checking that the political agenda will keep into account the coordination among coronavirus crisis, structural European crisis and the new multiannual budget. This attention will also be at the centre of our commemoration of the 70 Years of the Schuman Declaration and of the 2500 years of the battles of Thermopyles and Salamina, from 9 may up to the first days of September.
We hope that these events will generate a cultural movement transforming the attitude of the European establishment, which will be much more focussed on a coordinated and urgent technological change.
We would be honoured by any reaction on your side, and we remain available for any form of cooperation.
Thanking you in advance for your attention,
We remain,
Yours Faithfully
For Associazione Culturale Diàlexis
The President
Riccardo Lala
| Asssociazione Culturale Diálexis Via Bernardino Galliari 32, 10125 Torino TO (Italy) ++39 011.6690004 |