Activities of Soledad CABEZÓN RUIZ related to 2016/2147(INI)
Plenary speeches (2)
Assessment of Horizon 2020 implementation (debate) ES
Assessment of Horizon 2020 implementation (debate) ES
Reports (1)
REPORT on the assessment of Horizon 2020 implementation in view of its interim evaluation and the Framework Programme 9 proposal PDF (808 KB) DOC (370 KB)
Amendments (49)
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas, in negotiating H2020 and the current Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), Parliament asked for EUR100 billion euros rather than the EUR 77 billion agreed and the budget seems very limited if H2020 is to fully explore excellence potential and respond to societal challenges European and global society is currently facing; whereas, in negotiating H2020 and the current Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), Parliament asked for EUR 100 billion euros rather than the EUR 77 billion agreed and the budget seems very limited if H2020 is to fully explore excellence potential;
Amendment 11 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas the economic and financial crisis was a determining factor in the design of H2020, and new current challenges (such as populism, inequalities, migration and terrorism) and new political and economic paradigmsnationalist populism, xenophobia, inequalities, migration flows and international terrorism, technological progress, social and healthcare challenges, climate change or sustainability of natural resources) and new political and economic paradigms, requiring answers from society's perspective and in its interest, while preserving the values and principles that characterise the EU, are likely to shape the next research programme;
Amendment 18 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E a (new)
Recital E a (new)
Ea. whereas there are many changes and challenges that will need to be tackled in the future to promote and care for health in Europe; changes and challenges flowing from a comprehensive vision of health, a new demographic, epidemiological, sociological, economic and competitive context, and significant technological changes and major shifts in care models;
Amendment 26 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Recalls that the objective of H2020 is to contribute to building a society and an economy based on knowledge and innovation by leveraging additional national public and private R&D funding and by helping to attain the target of 3% of GDP for R&D by 2020; regrets that the EU invested only 2.03% of GDP in 2015, with the individual figures for different countries ranging from 0.46% to 3.26%14 ; reminds that the European Research Area (ERA) faces direct competition with the world's top-performing research regions and that the strengthening of the ERA is therefore a collective duty of Europe; _________________ 14 ‘Horizon 2020, the EU framework programme for research and innovation. European Implementation Assessment’. European Parliament Research Service.
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Stresses that the evaluation of FP7 and monitoring of H2020 shows that the EU FP for research and innovation is a huge success15 and creates clear EU Added-Value with a high level of additionality; _________________ 15 With over 130 000 proposals received, 9 000 grants signed, 50 000 participations and EUR 15.9 billion of EU funding.
Amendment 37 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Understands that the FP intends to incentivise industry participation in order to increase R&D spending by industry16 ; regrets that industries have not increased their share of R&D spending; however notes that industry participation including SMEs is significantly higher than in FP7; asks the Commission to assess the added value of funding for industry-driven instruments such as Joint Technology Initiatives (JTIs), which account for a large share of the budget17 , and the coherence and transparency of all joint initiatives18 ; stresses that is it very important to guarantee that the public interest is sufficiently protected in such initiatives, guaranteeing an equitable social impact, and to ensure further public participation in the decision making process of the research priorities; _________________ 16 Two-thirds of the 3% of GDP for R&D should come from industry. 17 In total, the 7 JTIs account for more than EUR 7 billion of the H2020 funds, ca. 10% of the whole H2020 budget and more than 13% of the actual available funding for H2020 calls (ca. EUR 8 billion/year over 7 years). 18 See Council conclusions of 29 May 2015.
Amendment 73 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Stresses that the current low success rate of less than 14 % represents a negative trend compared to FP7; regrets that the cuts inflicted by EFSI have deepened this problem;
Amendment 81 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Insists that research can be a risky investment for private investors and that funding research practice through grants is a necessity, in particular in areas with only limited market incentives for the private sector and especially for SME; regrets the tendency, in some cases, to move away from grants towards the use of loans; recognises that loans must be available for high TRL, close to market activities, within other types of instruments (e.g. EIB schemes) outside of the FP;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Insists that research can be a risky investment for private investors and that funding research practice through grants is a necessity; regrets the tendency, in some cases, to move away from grants towards the use of loans; recognises that loans must be available for high TRL, close to market activities, within other types of instrumentsfinancial instruments (loans, guarantees, equity instruments) should be available for high TRL, close to market activities as part of InnovFin financial instruments, and outside of the FP (e.g. EIB, EIF schemes) outside of the FP;
Amendment 89 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Underlines that several Member States are not respecting their national R&D investment commitments; calls for the earmarking of Structural Funds for R&D activities, especially investments in capacity building, infrastructure and salaries, asks that the 3% of GDP target be met, and hopes that this can be raised to 4% in the not too distant future; calls on the Commission and Member States to drive national strategies to reach that objective (for example that R&D investments are not account for as investment in relation to deficit objectives);
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Confirms that ‘'excellence’' should remain the key criterion across the three pillars, while noting that it is only one of the three evaluation criteria, alongside ‘'impact’' and ‘'quality and efficiency of the implementation’'; calls for the reweighting of these criteria prioritizing "excellence" and invites the Commission to set out additional sub- criteria by adding ‘SSH integration and geographical balance’ under ‘impact’ and ‘project size’ under ‘efficiency of the implementation’'project size' under 'efficiency of the implementation' and 'SSH integration" under 'impact; and to analyse how to drive and create excellence centres all over the EU; calls on the European Commission within the evaluation phase, to take into account the excellence of the centre and to deal with the barrier that lower salaries can be for that, for the sake of more excellence and more centers of excellence in Europe;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls for better and transparent evaluation and quality assurance by the evaluators; takes note of the complaints made by unsuccessful applicants that the Evaluation Summary Reports lack depth and clarity on what should be done differently in order to succeed; calls on the Commission to publish, in conjunction with the call for proposals, detailed project evaluation criteria and reasons for proposals being rejected;
Amendment 121 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13 a (new)
Paragraph 13 a (new)
13a. Stresses that the transparency and credibility of the evaluation process is crucial for program effectiveness; in this context, highlights the need to improve the feedback and scoring given to participants throughout the selection process, as well as provide them with more detailed and informative Evaluation Summary Reports;
Amendment 127 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Call on the Commission to better define ‘'impact' and to consider not only economic but also social impact’; stresses that the assessment of the impact of fundamental research projects should remain flexible and its relative weight in the evaluation procedure should be decreased; asks the Commission to check that the balance between bottom-up and top-down calls is maintained and to analyse which procedure (one or two stage) is more useful to avoid oversubscription;
Amendment 136 #
14a. Stresses the importance of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) for the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), calls on the Commission and the Member States to reinforce their forerunner role in fostering STI for sustainable development; calls on the Commission to reinforce sustainability-related research agendas under Horizon 2020 and install an effective corresponding monitoring system;
Amendment 143 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Calls on the Commission to continue to enhance the societal challenges approach and, to emphasises the importance of collaborative research and to prioritise societal challenges where there is a lack of profitable markets to drive STI; calls also on the Commission to identify future societal challenges within the new economic, social and political context; underlines however the need to reinforce someat least the following four societal challenges such as innovation in agriculture and health, especially cancer and antimicrobial resistance research plansustainable, healthy and competitive agriculture; environment and climate change; SSH related to democracy, social inclusion and justice among others; and health from a global perspective that faces challenges as sustainability, the need of cancer and antimicrobial resistance research plans, rare diseases, chronic diseases associated with aging, neurological and psychiatric disorders and poverty-related and neglected diseases;
Amendment 153 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Paragraph 15 a (new)
15a. Calls on the Commission to encourage research and innovation in carrying out annual Horizon 2020 programming, with clear and specific final objectives aimed at increasing employment, competitiveness, environmental sustainability and public health;;
Amendment 157 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 b (new)
Paragraph 15 b (new)
15b. Calls on the Commission to promote networking between institutions active in health research, for example through experimentation with innovative joint care and assistance programmes for vulnerable persons;
Amendment 159 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Notes that synergies between funds are crucial to make investments more effective; stresses that RIS3 are an important tool to catalyse synergies setting out national and regional frameworks for R&D&I investments; regrets the presence of substantial barriers to making synergies fully operational19 such as the State Aid rules; calls on the Commission to revise the State Aid rules and to allow R&D structural fund projects to be justifiable within the FP rules of procedure and to coordinate RIS and European and national R&;D priorities; Calls also on the European Commission and member States for the correct application of the principle of additionality; Stresses that according to this principle, the contributions of European funds should not replace the equivalent public or structural expenditure of a Member State in the regions where it applies; _________________ 19 Large research infrastructure fits within the scope and goals of the ERDF, but ERDF funds allocated nationally cannot be used to co-finance it; construction costs associated with new research infrastructures are eligible under the ERDF, but operational and staff costs are not.
Amendment 166 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16a. Stresses that current Horizon 2020 funding risks increasing the disparity and divergence between European regions and macro-regions, favouring those with a high level of public support for R&D and the presence of organised and dynamic industrial ecosystems and therefore asks the Commission to bring Horizon 2020 and regional policies more closely into line, so as to align development in underdeveloped and highly industrialised regions and encourage SME participation in innovative clusters;
Amendment 167 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16a. Calls on the Commission on implementing effective synergy mechanisms between FP and ESIF, including aligning the state aid rules for RDI projects under H2020 and ESIF; notes that effective use of the Seal of Excellence scheme will only be possible if the above condition is met;
Amendment 171 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Notes that the R&I capabilities of North/South and West/East Member States are very different; recognises the European dimension to the problem of the participation gap, which must be addressed by the FP if the EU is to exploit its full potential; welcomes, in this respect, the Widening Programme that must be a mechanism to increase participation of beneficiary countries; calls on the Commission to assess whether the three Widening instruments have achieved their specific objectives and to clarify the rational and general goal of the Programme, to review the indicator used to define ‘'underrepresented’' countries, and to keep a dynamic list that allows Member States to be in or out depending on how their capabilities evolve and to check if its objective of incentivising and improving R&D capacities is being accomplished; calls on the Commission to adapt or adopt new measures to bridge this gap;
Amendment 177 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 a (new)
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17a. Proposes that in order to boost collaboration, enhance the capacity for excellence across Europe, and support lower-capacity regions and institutions, projects that have been granted public funds could be partially carried out in other locations where, for example, it might be more efficient to exploit commercially some of the findings and innovations;
Amendment 182 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. RWelcomes efforts to secure better links between the European Research Area and the European Higher Education Area facilitating ways to train the next generation of researchers; recognises the importance of incorporating research and entrepreneurship skills into Member States’' primary and high school education systems in order to encourage young people to develop these skills, as R&D should be viewed in structural rather than cyclical or temporal terms; calls on the Member States and the Commission to enhance employment stability for young researchers; calls on the Commission to provide new increased levels of support for young researchers, such as a newand to reinforce funding schemes for early-stage researchers with less than threewo years of experience after PhD completion;
Amendment 188 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. Welcomes efforts to secure better links between the European Research Area and the European Higher Education Area facilitating ways to train the next generation of researchers; Calls on the Commission to continue working in the complementarity of ERASMUS+ Programme and FP9 by supporting initiatives, such as summer schools and testing the latest research based didactic methods and by introducing a supplementary ERC scheme, similar to the ERC Proof of Concept scheme, allowing ERC grant holders to explore innovative teaching methods and curricula;
Amendment 189 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. Emphasises the need to improve collaboration between research and higher education, as well as strengthen links between the European Research Area and the European Higher Education Area by fostering international research mobility for students and young researchers, as well as developing students´ innovation skills by involving them in research work;
Amendment 190 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. Stresses the importance of closer cooperation between industry and the university and scientific establishment, so as to facilitate the creation of dedicated structures within universities and scientific centres for the purpose of forging closer links with the production sector;
Amendment 192 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 b (new)
Paragraph 18 b (new)
18b. Stresses the vital role of Marie Sklodowska Curie Action (MSCA) in strengthening the European Research Area; encourages further support for mobility of researchers via MSCA, and the fostering of intersectoral mobility between academia and industry;
Amendment 199 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Confirms that international co- operation fell from 5% in FP7 to 2.8% in Horizon 2020; recalls that the FP should contribute to ensuring that Europe remains a key global player, while underlining the importance of scientific diplomacy; calls for a concrete, immediate measures and a long-term strategic vision and structure to support this objective and welcomes initiatives such as PRIMA;
Amendment 201 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19 a (new)
Paragraph 19 a (new)
19a. Calls for a comprehensive vision and action plan for health research and product development to increase coordination and coherence of European programmes with national and international initiatives and research agendas, and to ensure promising products are supported throughout the entire development pipeline; Calls on the European Commission to also prioritise public health in developing countries, as the Ebola crisis revealed the importance of public health for the development of regions
Amendment 209 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Recalls that SSH integration means SSH research in interdisciplinary projects and not an ex-post add-on to otherwise technological projects, and that the most pressing problems faced by the EU require methodological research that is more conceptually focused on SSH; calls on the Commission either to introduce a minimum percentage dedicated to SSH funding, or to create an evaluation sub-criterion that takes account of its inclusion in projects; underlines that more budget should be made available for SSH under Societal Challenge 6 in order to meet European citizens’ concerns and help EU institutions and member states to support policies on migration, terrorism, unemployment, social inclusion, inequalities, culture, cultural heritage and the role of creative industries, growth beyond GDP as well as the relationships of the EU with other parts of the world; calls on the Commission to report on the budgets allocated to such fundamental political, social and cultural issues affecting the EU in Societal Challenge 6.
Amendment 223 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21 a (new)
Paragraph 21 a (new)
21a. Welcomes the openness to new approaches and incentives piloted under H2020 and calls on the Commission to explore the use of milestone prizes and market entry rewards in the field of biomedical R&D and encourages the development of access plans to support the availability and affordability of products to the end user, taking into account access to research data and responsible management of IP. These models should be employed as a suite of mechanisms to incentivize innovation and de-link the costs of R&D from product prices where possible;
Amendment 224 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21 a (new)
Paragraph 21 a (new)
21a. Welcomes the setting up of the CEI and stresses the need to promote both research and innovation at the same time; calls on the Commission to use the CEI to create an ecosystem that will help inventors, investors and innovators to make synergistic use of the various FP9 instruments;
Amendment 233 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22 a (new)
Paragraph 22 a (new)
22a. invites the Commission to keep a balanced funding proportion for the whole research and innovation chain, including cooperative early stage research activities and ground-breaking research required to develop innovative products and services; recognises the importance of the ERC and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions for improving the excellence of the European research and asks the Commission to safeguard the EU added value within cooperative research projects bringing together different research expertise across the Union;
Amendment 236 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Welcomes initiatives which bring the private and public sectors together to stimulate research; regrets the low level of public return on public investment of Horizon 2020in some sensitive areas such as health; highlights the need for enhanced EU leadership in prioritising public research needs and a fair public return; calls on the Commission to study the possibilities of co-ownership of IP for key projects funded by FP public grantsstresses the need to ensure balanced stakeholder involvement and greater transparency in the decision- making process in such partnerships; highlights the need for enhanced EU leadership in prioritising public research needs and a fair public return to EU taxpayers' money invested (for example, in biomedical R&D it should be reflected in terms of affordability, availability and suitability of end products); calls on the Commission to study the possibilities of co-ownership of IP for key projects funded by FP public grants and to put in place mechanisms that allow to know the traceability of public funds in research and the social evaluation of their impact in terms of equity, especially in some sensitive areas such as health in order to explore more innovative ways of organizing health research to meet the challenges ahead and improve their efficiency;
Amendment 247 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Welcomes the fact that Open Access is now a general principle under Horizon 2020; highlights that the number of publications linked to projects up to December 201621 shows that new policies on enforcing the free sharing of data and ideas are required in order to make all scientific data produced by future projects available by default, as the 100% objective is still a distant goal; Regrets that the flexibility criteria has been a barrier in order to reach that objective and to increase knowledge and development. Ask therefore for 100% objective when public funds are involved; _________________ 21 OpenAIRE report: In H2020, 2017 (19%) out of a total number of 10684 projects have ended and 8667 are ongoing. OpenAIRE has identified 6133 publications linked to 1375 H2020 projects.
Amendment 248 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Welcomes the fact that Open Access is now a general principle under Horizon 2020; highlights that the number of publications linked to projects up to December 201621 shows that new policies on enforcing the free sharing and use of databases and the review of data and ideas are required in order to make all scientific data produced by future projects available by default, as the 100 % objective is still a distant goal; _________________ 21 OpenAIRE report: In H2020, 2017 (19 %) out of a total number of 10684 projects have ended and 8667 are ongoing. OpenAIRE has identified 6133 publications linked to 1375 H2020 projects.
Amendment 255 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25 a (new)
Paragraph 25 a (new)
25a. Proposes that the Seal of Excellence currently applied in Innovation in SMEs and Teaming be extended to research proposals in Excellent Science in order to highlight quality research proposals in Excellent Science and help them to seek alternative sources of funding e.g. European structural funds or national research programmes;
Amendment 259 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 26
Paragraph 26
26. Welcomes the success of H2020 and the 1:11 leverage factor; notes the oversubscription and the challenges that lie ahead, and calls for a budgetary increase of EUR 100 billion for FP9; that should not be affected by BREXIT; Considers that beyond budget increase, an innovative framework incorporating innovation is needed and calls therefore on the Commission to well define innovation and its different types, such as incremental, disruptive and open innovation;
Amendment 327 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30 a (new)
Paragraph 30 a (new)
30a. Underlines the need for high quality comparative research on fundamental social and political issues for Europe in order to preserve its high level of economic and social development, laws, freedoms and well-being which all combined give it its added value and confers its identity; calls for a distinct research programme, with high impact on policies, on the future of European democracies and societies including fundamental issues such as democracy, justice, growth and jobs, terrorism, inequalities and poverty, migration, social models, ageing, youth, cultural policies, and the role of Europe in the world.
Amendment 332 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30 b (new)
Paragraph 30 b (new)
30b. Underlines the need for high quality comparative research on fundamental social and political issues for Europe in order to preserve its high level of economic and social development, laws, freedoms and well-being which all combined give it its added value and confers its identity; calls for a distinct research programme, with high impact on policies, on the future of European democracies and societies including fundamental issues such as democracy, justice, growth and jobs, terrorism, inequalities and poverty, migration, social models, ageing, youth, cultural policies, and the role of Europe in the world; Calls on the Commission to measure the social impact of SSH from other disciplines such as engineering1a; _________________ 1aSee the example of the enterprise Clarity, a company whose mission is to maximize social impact and reduce inequality, using solutions based on Big Data and artificial intelligence algorithms.
Amendment 338 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31
Paragraph 31
31. Notes that R&D investment by industry has not significantly increased; in view of the generally scarce resources for public R&D spending, calls for industrial competitiveness to be supported by differentiating between mature and emerging sectors, thus allowing larger or more mature industries to participate in projects more at their own cost or throughpromoting process and product innovation in mature and emerging sectors, in order to create new market opportunities, not least through networks of companies of differing sizes, by means of grants or loans;
Amendment 340 #
31. Notes that R&D investment by industry has not significantly increased; in view of the generally scarce resources for public R&D spending,calls therefore on the Commission and member states to further encourage private investment that must be additional to public R&D investment and not substitutive; in view of the generally scarce resources for public R&D spending, calls on the private sector to engage more in R&D spending and in Open Access and Open Data Science or calls for industrial competitiveness to be supported by differentiating between mature and emerging sectors, thus allowing larger or more mature industries to participate in projects more at their own cost or through loans;
Amendment 346 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31 a (new)
Paragraph 31 a (new)
31a. Considers that improved well- being of the people is the ultimate aim of R&D; calls on the Commission to address all dimensions of sustainable development, in particular human development and societal impact, as cross- cutting issues with concrete targets in FP9;
Amendment 347 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31 a (new)
Paragraph 31 a (new)
31a. Asks the Commission to consider the possibility for international research organizations established in the EU to participate to the FP9, which would foster the scientific dialogue within the research environment of local communities;
Amendment 349 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31 b (new)
Paragraph 31 b (new)
31b. Invites the Commission and Member States to continue successful innovative R&D partnerships with great societal impact, such as the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP); while making sure the public interest in such investments is sufficiently protected and the results of the publicly funded research maximise the public benefit;
Amendment 353 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32
Paragraph 32
32. Regrets the mixed set of results achieved by the gender equality focus in H2020, as the only target reached is the share of women in the advisory groups, while the share of women in the project evaluation panels and among project coordinators, and the gender dimension in research and innovation content, remain below target levels; Underlines that science, like all disciplines of life, cannot be considered neutral as the view of society and the effect of science in the male gender and in the female gender can be different, which implies diversity and wealth. Therefore, asks for the guarantee of participation of female gender in FP9 and the reach of the objective of the minimum 40% of participation among the evaluators; ask also to promote gender equality in the coordination and direction of the projects, and the elaboration of an objective study on the barriers or difficulties that may be conditioning an underrepresentation of the female gender in the program with a view to introducing the necessary corrective measures in FP9; Calls the Commission to analyse the gender perspective in all FP research projects identifying its effects on the female gender, for which data disaggregation must be introduced in the analysis of scientific results; encourages Member States to create a gender-positive legal and political environment and to provide incentives for change, and calls on the Commission to continue to promote gender equality and mainstreaming in FP9 and to consider the possibility of gender as a sub- criterion in the evaluation phase;
Amendment 362 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 a (new)
Paragraph 32 a (new)
32a. Takes the view that health, in coordination with social policies, represents a crucial element of the future European social pillar that is needed in order to advance towards ‘more Europe’ through greater social cohesion, in line with the commitment given by the President of the Commission in his inaugural address, and this requires a global vision that will make it possible to face up to the sustainability challenges posed in the light of demographic change, the increase in chronic diseases and the need for public health to play a key role in the context defined as ‘One Health’, where the environment, non-polluting transport and sustainable agriculture play a crucial part; notes that an integrated and coordinated health programme is therefore needed, which entails strengthening challenge 1 in the social pillar;
Amendment 365 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 b (new)
Paragraph 32 b (new)
32b. Stresses that agriculture represents one of the EU’s main economic and cohesion policies; notes that it is not only facing the challenge of competitiveness in the globalised world but must also be sustainable in terms of the environment and health; calls, therefore, for a clear focus on research for this purpose, along with specific support for SME innovation in the sector for the forthcoming FP9;