Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on European Missions

(COM(2021) 609 final)

(2022/C 275/05)

Rapporteur:	Paul RÜBIG
Co-rapporteur:	Małgorzata Anna BOGUSZ

Referral	European Commission, 1.12.2021
Legal basis	Article 304 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
Section responsible	Single Market, Production and Consumption
Adopted in section	3.2.2022
Adopted at plenary	23.2.2022
Plenary session No	567
Outcome of vote (for/against/abstentions)	214/1/3

1.   Conclusions and recommendations

1.1.

While the EESC feels that the five missions presented in the communication are high priorities for the EU, the EESC also considers the five challenges and objectives listed below to be very important for Europe.

Develop and pursue missions and measures to:

1.	keep up with the USA and Asia in global competition in the areas of research, technology and innovation (RTI);

2.	cope with the challenges linked to the EU’s ageing society;

3.	define strategies for the successful integration of the high number of migrants coming into the EU;

4.	improve emergency preparedness;

5.	cope with the needs of patients with non-communicable diseases (NCD) impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those who suffer from cardio-vascular disease.

1.2.

The communication lists and addresses five priority EU Missions: 1. Adaptation to climate change; 2. Cancer; 3. Restore our ocean and waters by 2030, including sanitation; 4. 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030, including smart villages; 5. A soil deal for Europe.

1.3.

The EESC strongly supports the idea of empowering 150 climate benchmark regions throughout Europe. However, this will require a huge R&D budget. The EESC therefore strongly recommends increasing the portion of the EU regional budgets earmarked for R&D from the current figure of 5 % to a minimum of 10 %.

1.4.

The EESC welcomes the fact that the EU is focusing on fighting cancer as one of the most important health issues, and wishes to encourage the EU institutions to undertake similar steps with respect to cardio-vascular diseases — the number one killer of European citizens and around the world.

2.   General comments

2.1.

EU Missions will deliver results through a new role for research and innovation under the Horizon Europe programme, combined with a coordinated, all-in approach, and a new relationship with citizens. They will fully mobilise and engage with public and private actors, such as EU Member States, regional and local authorities, research institutes, entrepreneurs, and public and private investors, all to create real and lasting impact.

2.2.

The EESC would like to highlight that the competitiveness of Europe’s industry is very important in order to achieve the EU’s Missions. The EESC therefore welcomes the reference to the new industrial competitiveness agenda. At the same time, the EESC underlines the importance of considering the impact on EU citizens and encourages the Commission to strongly link activities to social policies and the European Pillar of Social Rights, taking in particular into account the special needs of elderly and vulnerable EU citizens.

2.3.

The EESC wishes to highlight that, while the major focus of the European Missions is delivering impact for the EU through a new and greater role for research and innovation, the economic dimension (global competition, high quality jobs etc.) as well as the social dimension also have to play a major role within these European Missions. As far as the social dimension is concerned, the EESC would like to emphasise that besides the importance of social rights and the safe-guarding of the social security and fair working conditions for all employees, special attention has to be paid to the special needs of vulnerable groups in the EU (elderly people, sick people etc.)

2.4.

The EESC very much welcomes the fact that R&I is clearly seen as the core issue of the EU Missions document. The EESC is convinced that complex challenges lying ahead of the EU can be addressed primarily through R&I.

2.5.

The EESC adopted its opinion on A new ERA for Research and Innovation in March 2021 (1), an opinion on the Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe, in February 2022 (2), and an opinion on An intellectual property action plan to support the EU's recovery and resilience (3). The present opinion should be seen in close conjunction with these three recent EESC opinions.

2.6.

The EESC fully agrees that, due to the current challenges, ‘continuing with the status quo is not an option’. Europe needs ‘a new kind of research and innovation policy’: if the EU continues with more of the same of its ‘old’ R&I policy, it will not be able to tackle the huge challenges facing it, namely fierce competition from Asia. The EESC pointed this out very clearly in its opinion on A new ERA for Research and Innovation.

2.7.

Regarding enterprises, the communication states that the European Missions will fully mobilise and engage with public and private stakeholders, such as the EU Member States, regional and local authorities, research institutes, entrepreneurs and public and private investors, EU citizens and civil society, all to create real and lasting impact, taking into account industry and businesses, particularly MSMEs.

2.8.

The competitiveness of the EU’s industry regarding technologies for the decarbonisation of electricity generation as well as of other CO2 intensive industries is a decisive factor in achieving the EU’s Mission 1 — ‘Adaptation to climate change’. If the EU does not succeed, it will lose millions of job in these industries.

2.9.

The EESC also fully agrees that the EU Missions must be fully consistent with the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs).

2.10.

While the EESC feels that the five missions are high priorities for the EU, it considers the additional five challenges and missions listed in chapter 4 to also be very important for Europe.

2.11.

The EESC recommends that the European Commission also prioritise missions and measures that generate new, high-quality jobs, business, income, wealth and a high quality of living for EU citizens, such as maintaining the competitiveness of Europe’s technological products against increasingly fierce global competition (especially with China, South Korea, etc.).

2.12.

A substantial amount of Europe’s jobs and wealth stems from exports of Europe’s technological products (cars, machinery, materials, etc.). Another important source of new jobs in Europe are MSMEs, innovative start-ups, scale-ups and higher education.

3.   Specific comments

3.1.   Mission 1 — Adaptation to Climate Change

3.1.1.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges for humanity in the 21st century. Policy makers will need to anticipate the changes ahead in order to protect the sectors and groups most at risk, also considering employment.

3.1.2.

With almost all Green Deal measures, prices for electricity, fuel, domestic heating etc. increase for EU citizens. These price increases have a particularly high impact on the hundreds of millions of people within the EU Member States with low and medium incomes and vulnerable people in general, which often are low-income EU citizens. This means that all Green Deal measures have a significant social impact and must be handled carefully. They must increase prosperity instead of sidelining those who need support to tackle the change.

3.1.3.

Examples of new technologies that will certainly play a very important role in reducing CO2 emissions include: — decarbonisation of electricity generation; — decarbonisation of CO2-emitting industries, e.g. the steel industry, the cement industry, etc.; — carbon capture and storage (CCS) and, for example, sewage treatment plants; — storage of electric power on a very large scale for low specific costs; — e-mobility; — smart grids and high-voltage power grids; — smart cities, etc.

3.1.4.

These technologies are easy to list on paper, but implementing them is undoubtedly a huge challenge, given the scale needed for all 27 EU Member States as well as globally.

3.1.5.

One key issue in this global competition regarding new technologies will be the availability of a high number of researchers and engineers. This is definitely a huge challenge for Europe. Countries in Asia, have increased the number of students in physics, ICT and engineering massively over the last 20 years, whereas numbers have been more or less stagnant in Europe. The European Missions should not only promote an increase in the number of these students, but the EU should promote a change in the current ‘brain drain’ of highly qualified people into a ‘brain gain’ for the EU.

3.1.6.

The EESC strongly recommends that the Commission define measures to substantially improve basic skills as well as increase the number of students in physics, ICT and engineering, and also in medicine and pharmacology in Europe in the next 20 years. Without this engineering brain trust, Europe will continue to fall behind in all technologies needed to fight climate change.

3.2.   Mission 2 — Cancer

3.2.1.

The EU 27 is witnessing steadily increasing numbers of cancer cases. The EU 27 must work together on improving diagnosis, therapy, access to personalised medicines, treatment and prevention — as was already emphasised in the EESC’s opinion on Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan in June 2021 (4). Therefore, the EESC welcomes the fact that research for cancer prevention and cure has been indicated as one of the five EU Missions

3.2.2.

The EESC wants to clearly emphasise that one of the toughest challenges will be to level out the disparities in access to cancer treatment between individual countries. The EESC advises that a special focus has to be put on vulnerable groups within the EU.

3.2.3.

As was already described in the EESC opinion on Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, access to the most innovative therapies and the introduction of vaccination campaigns that will enable us to reduce the number of cancers caused by viral infections play a unique role here.

3.2.4.

The EESC wants to emphasise the need of a more active approach towards prevention of occupational cancer. As it was stressed in the opinion Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, the EESC calls for more research into occupational exposure to carcinogens, mutagens and endocrine disruptors and the causes of occupational cancers.

3.2.5.

The EESC wants to stress that social partners, patient advocacy groups and civil society organisations have an indispensable role to play by disseminating best practices and providing relevant information — about the causes of cancer and about special issues relating to, for example, gender or vulnerable groups,

3.3.   Mission 3 –Restore our Ocean and Waters by 2030

3.3.1.

Clean water is of major importance for EU citizens, agriculture and for its fishing industry. Again, research and clean water technologies, including waste water mining, sanitation and sewage treatment are key for this mission.

3.3.2.

Furthermore, access to clean water still is an issue for many citizens. The EESC encourages the Commission to legally implement the human rights to water and sanitation.

3.4.   Mission 4 — 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030

3.4.1.

More than 65 % of the global population lives in large cities, and this percentage is growing. These large cities impose growing challenges in terms of infrastructure (water supply and sewage, transport, energy supply, etc.) and quality of life. Many of the challenges can only be solved by research and high-tech solutions. Much more highly-skilled engineers will be needed in the future to plan these high-tech smart cities and villages.

3.4.2.

The proportion of older people in cities is growing fast (‘ageing society’). Older people and vulnerable people have needs differing from young people: they need more medical care, social care, etc. Due to the demographic shift in society, there will not be enough young people to provide all these services in the near future, which mean that some of these services for older people will have to be taken over by smart solutions (e.g. robots).

3.4.3.

Many emergencies within recent years have shown that modern societies are relatively vulnerable, thus increasing ‘emergency preparedness’ through R&D is very important: — disasters in the nuclear power plants in Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island etc.; — electricity blackouts and communication blackouts; — shortages of and steep price increases in all energy sources, including natural gas; — thunderstorms and massive floods, with many hundreds of people killed; — pandemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Zika and future pandemics; — cyber-attacks (with the massively growing digitalisation of everything in public life, private life and business, the threat of cyber-attacks is growing rapidly).

3.4.4.

Eastern and southern Europe barely escaped a huge power blackout on 8 January 2021. The root cause for the increasing vulnerability of Europe’s power supply is the increasing share of unpredictable and unplannable renewable electric power, such as wind turbines and solar power. Europe is not very well prepared for blackouts: in the event of a blackout, the energy supply to private households and industry breaks down immediately, communication breaks down within minutes or hours, the supply of drinking water breaks down within a short time etc. Recovering from a major electricity blackout is not an easy task.

3.5.   Mission 5 — A Soil Deal for Europe

3.5.1.

Along with clean water, as mentioned above, healthy soil to grow the basic ingredients for food is one of the most important resources for all living creatures, including humans and animals. The global population is growing: by the end of the century we will need to feed approximately 10 billion people on a sustainable basis. Conventional food and farming are one of the major sources of the greenhouse gases CO2 and methane. This means that a large amount of R&D is needed to research and develop climate neutral agriculture for the sustainable production of food for the 10 billion people living on the globe. Currently, approximately 10 % of the EU’s budget for agriculture and farming is spent on R&D; the EESC recommends increasing this figure to a minimum of 20 % to increase R&D for new, sustainable farming technologies, including in particular robotics in farming technologies and food.

4.   Five additional missions

4.1.

While the EESC considers the five missions listed in the communication to be high priorities for the EU, it feels that the 5 challenges and missions described below are also of high importance.

4.2.   Additional EU Mission 1 — Keeping up with the USA and Asia in the global competition in RTI

4.2.1.

It is important to define and pursue missions and measures to prevent the EU falling behind Asia in research, technology, innovation (RTI) and patents, especially in comparison with China and South Korea. It is a fact that the EU has been falling behind China and South Korea regarding RTI at an increasing pace since approximately 2000 (5).

4.2.2.

If the EU continues to fall behind the USA and Asia in RTI, Europe will lose millions of jobs and considerable wealth in the long run (20 to 50 years). The shortfall of the EU27 really is critical, especially in key enabling technologies (KETs) and future emerging technologies (FETs), such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, robotics, genetic engineering, communication technologies (e.g. 5G), computer chip manufacturing, manufacturing of key components for e-mobility (e.g. batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen), etc. New materials have always been and will always be a driver for innovation: for example, graphene innovation and its industrial upscaling has substantial potential for research and innovation for Europe.

4.3.   Additional EU Mission 2 — Coping with the challenges of the EU’s ageing society

4.3.1.

EU society is ageing fast, and this will create several new challenges for all EU Member States.

4.3.2.

Older people and vulnerable people have different needs from young people: they need more and new medicine (for dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, etc.), more medical care, more social care, and special training and education, especially designed for older and vulnerable people, etc.

4.3.3.

Research and innovation (in medicine, pharmaceuticals, social sciences, engineering sciences, special training courses etc.) will undoubtedly play a major role in helping cope with the EU’s ageing society.

4.3.4.

Society as a whole needs an ambitious European care strategy.

4.4.   Additional EU Mission 3 — Strategies for the successful integration of the high number of migrants coming into the EU

4.4.1.

The EU needs to develop missions and measures for the integration of this high number of migrants into the EU Member States. Since the EU is a rapidly ageing society, it needs more young, well-educated people. Thus, innovative concepts for educating and training migrants are needed. Socioeconomic research can help develop a better understanding of what is needed for the successful integration of these millions of people.

4.5.   Additional EU Mission 4 — Emergency Preparedness

4.5.1.

Emergency preparedness involves developing and pursuing missions and measures to safeguard a stable energy supply and to avoid electricity blackouts, while decarbonising the EU’s energy system. In this regard, see point 3.4.4, which addresses the issue of emergency preparedness, especially the challenge of electricity blackouts and communication blackouts. Again, research and innovation, primarily in the engineering sciences, is the key to addressing these challenges.

4.5.2.

Other emergency challenges include floods, droughts, pandemics, but also economic emergency situations, e. g. the blocking of global supply chains (e.g. the blocking of the Suez Canal in 2021, etc.)

4.6.   Additional EU Mission 5 — Coping with the needs of patients with non-communicable diseases (NCD) impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially those suffering from cardio-vascular disease — the number one cause of death of European citizens and globally.

4.6.1.

After the pandemic, more focus is needed on non-communicable diseases (NCD). In the EU there are 60 million people living with cardio-vascular diseases (CVD) — it is the number one killer of European citizens. In non-COVID-19 years, CVD is the most common cause of preventable deaths in the EU. During the pandemic, many of these patients have been diagnosed too late or did not have a chance to be diagnosed at all.

4.6.2.

We should look into the health equity dimension in the EU, thus supporting the reduction of health inequalities, including aspects of gender medicine. While focusing on promotion and prevention, this initiative should also support better knowledge and data, screening and early detection, diagnosis and treatment management, and patient quality of life. Another objective should be helping EU countries to transfer best practices, develop guidelines, and roll out innovative approaches, etc. This also means that the EU should name another European mission — to build healthcare systems that are more resilient to pandemics when it comes to cardio-vascular disease, in line with the efforts of the cancer mission, ultimately addressing the two NCDs with the highest burden on the European population. We also see a need to address other diseases, especially those which heavily impact European GDP — e.g. musculoskeletal conditions.

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(1)  OJ C 220, 9.6.2021, p. 79.

(2)  Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on Council recommendation on a Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe (COM(2021) 407 final — final 2021/230 (NLE)) (OJ C 275, 18.7.2022, p. 24).

(3)  OJ C 286, 16.7.2021, p. 59.

(4)  OJ C 341, 24.8.2021, p. 76.

(5)  Details can be read e.g. in the OECD STI-Reports 2015 and 2017.