📍Last Friday (27 Feb), EU Ministers met in
#Brussels for the Competitiveness
#COMPET Council dedicated to
#Research 🇪🇺
🇲🇹 #Malta was represented by Keith Azzopardi Tanti, Parliamentary Secretary
for #Youth, Research
and #Innovation.
🏭 Ministers discussed reformin
d for #Coa
l and #Steel, a programme that supports research and innovation in these sectors.
🔬 Another item on the agen
da was #HorizonEurope, the EU programme funding research and innovation. The new regulation for the 2028–2034 period is currently being negotiated in the context
of the #MultiannualFinancialFra
mework #MFF, which will establish the European U
nion’s #budget.
🇲🇹 For Malta and Horizon Europe, a key priority is preserving easier access to funding for smaller and medium-sized Member States with less developed research and innovation ecosystems. This would help boost Europe’s
overall #competitiveness by ensuring that the EU is able to advance its research and innovation capabilit
ies as a #Union.
⚖️ Malta also called for simplified application procedures, including a two-stage application process for facilitating access to funding for Member States. We also made concrete proposals to safeguard evaluations of applications against any bias, unintentional or otherwise.
⚠️ Malta also highlighted that work programmes and comitology between the European Competitiveness Fund and Horizon Europe should act separately but in synergy to ensure that research and innovation priorities are not marginalised in favour of industrial priorities.
@tanti_keith
