Clusters need to be included in the recovery plans of the EU Member States

Submitted by Tedora Aibu on 02 July 2020

Summary of the European Alliance Against Coronavirus Discussion on 30 June 2020 

European Commissioner Thierry Breton and the European Clusters Alliance (ECA) discussed during their videoconference on 30 June 2020 the role of clusters in the framework of the recovery process and aligned their ideas. They concluded that clusters play a critical role in the economic recovery of the European single market towards a green, digital, and resilient future.

“Clusters are absolutely essential to accelerate the transformation that we are putting in place on our European continent, regardless where business is located in the EU”, Commissioner Breton confirmed. Cluster must be part of the recovery plans of the EU Member States, he declared to the ECA, for which the Commission proposes 750 billion EUR, 500 distributed to the Member States, and encouraged the cooperation between clusters and their respective Member States.

The members of the European Clusters Alliance expressed during their presentations their readiness to act, placing their resources at the disposal of the European Commission and requesting more responsibility and trust to implement industrial policies of the European Union. The speakers were: Antonio Novo Guerrero, President European Clusters Alliance; Ilaria Massari, General Manager Reindustria Innovazione; Athanasios Konstandopoulos, Managing Director CERTH; Marielle Campanella, Head of European projects Pôle SCS; Kristiina Jokelainen, Project Manager MINE.THE.GAP; Krzysztof Krystowski, Vice-President European Clusters Alliance; and Jean-Luc Beylat, President AFPC. The videoconference was moderated by Teodora Jilkova, Managing Partner Veritas Cluster.  

Clusters have shown their potential since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, managing big groups of companies from different sectors at the same time and across different countries, in close and continuous collaboration with DG GROW, to help in this time of crisis and to look for ways and solutions for the recovery. This collaboration will continue. Commissioner Breton announced the launch of Euroclusters under the new Joint Cluster Initiatives in 2020/2021 helping to link ecosystems as innovation agents in cross-sectorial projects.

More than 1.000 attendants from countries all over Europe followed the meeting online.

A recording of the session is available here.  

These are the complete minutes of the meeting:

20200630_Dialogue_Commissioner Breton_ECA.pdf

These are the combined presentations:

Videoconference_Commissioner Breton_ECA_presentation.pdf

Find information on the previous meetings here; information on the upcoming agenda here.  

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